La Guerre du feu

It's probably the best and most accurate prehistoric men movie ever made as I write this (barring any PBS or Discovery channel documentaries). As accurate as anything prehistoric can be since anthropologists are probably even worse than historians about agreeing on theories. Whatever is the truth, it felt believable for that period. I thought at first it might devolve into cheap cavemen antics and the "costumes" for the second tribe seen seemed really lame but the movie grew a lot on me. It's actually a movie about the transition from ape to man condensed into a relatively short time for one tribe. It's actually more philosophical and emotional than one might initially think. What makes us humans instead of animals? Everything was filmed on outside locations with real animals (sometimes modified to look prehistoric) and it shows in the scope and authenticity. It felt strangely grim, uncomfortable and disorienting to me, which when I think about it, is probably how those tribesmen going on the quest must have felt.

They even had a famous linguist/author, Anthony Burgess, invent a language for the ape men to communicate. There aren't even any subtitles. It was made so anyone in the world can see this and understand which is a feat in itself. The beautiful musical score certainly helped counteract the lack of intelligible words by conveying the drama of the times. The performances were very good and convincing especially the one by Rae Dawn Chong (strange female covered in gray "makeup") who had the guts to be mostly naked throughout the film. Look also for Ron Perlman in his first role. From the commentaries, the actors really suffered a lot during shooting for the sake of authenticity (such as walking barefoot all the time). The story was simple but well told and meaningful. It felt a bit long at times for me so be sure you're up for it before starting your journey.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10