Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2012

Thirty-two thousand years ago, stone-age humans created surprisingly sophisticated paintings in a cave in today’s southern France. Bears, rhinos, horses, bison, mammoths. A few thousand years later, a rockslide sealed the cave’s entrance, which remained undiscovered until 1994. Auteur Werner Herzog has been allowed to film the cave and its astounding paintings, and uses techniques like 3D and torch-like lighting to suggest how the artworks might have appeared to the artists. You and I will probably never get in there, but this is a fine substitute.