Quest for Fire

Rating:
Summary: A VERY GOOD MOVIE, BUT VERY BAD PREHISTORY
Review: I am sorry that I will be an exception among the reviewers who appreciate quality of this movie, but I must remark that the number of inaccuracies appearing there is really extremely high. Quest for fire is certainly the best spectactle that has ever been shot about prehistory (or, at least, the best movie about this topic that I have ever seen), it has a very good story, very good music, but - I am sorry again - I think that even an anthropologist of that time would suffer heart failure after watching it. I don't know what specialists Annaud asked for help, but I can't believe that they could help him in such a way. It is set 80 000 ago, so I suppose it would be in the Near East, because it could not be otherwise (modern humans were not in Europe that time yet) . I am really doubtful that they behaved like half apes - as it is in this movie - and that they could met 2 metres high primitive neanderthals who looked like orangutans. In fact, neanderthals were very robust, but only 1,5-1,6 m (5-5'4 feet) high people, who had burial customs and relatively developed social structure (and I don't have to add that they spoke, which I couldn't expect from such creatures that are presented here). They were not too different from modern people in their look (I mean it relatively), so there couldn't be such hairy monsters in the Near East or Europe (and whatever in the world) 80.000 years ago. I think I could continue, but it wouldn't be a film review, but a scientific essay, so I will conclude my rating with this: Quest for fire is a very valuable film attempt to depict life in prehistory of humans, but due to the problematic things I mentioned above, I would be very glad if someone in the future would shoot a better movie about this topic, carefully based on scientific facts. It is true that "scientific facts" of each time may change, but I am sure that the life in prehistory didn't look like Annaud presents it here.

Rating:
Summary: Best movie of the eighties
Review: No text but everything have been said : love, life, war, fear...everything about human being. Definitively a top ten movie of the last decades.

Rating:
Summary: Mankind
Review: It's the begin of evolution at it's finest. The movie gives of the illumination of unity, without belonging would mean sure death. My favorite part is when they get attacked from across the stream, while the man is busy he notices the apes approaching, he in return starts to grunt and throw rocks, it's using commom sense to protect himself.

Rating:
Summary: quest for mutants?
Review: this is one of the greatest movies ever (if you are drunk). if you are not, then play the quest for fire drinking game. get a large quantity of alchohol and this movie, and get ready for an evening not to be remembered. it's easy, just take a drink everytime 1) the characters do something disgusting 2) the characters do something stupid 3) the characters get a dejected look on their faces when one of their plans don't work out how they thought it would. 4) you see stock footage of animals 5) the characters get dirty

follow my advice, and you'll have one hell of an evening.

Rating:
Summary: Will make you appreciate matches.
Review: If you've ever tried to light a wet match, or been entirely without the means for starting a blaze, then you'll appreciate the extremely fascinating 1982 film, QUEST FOR FIRE. Set 80,000 years ago in time, we're introduced to a tribe of primitive, human cave dwellers, which relies on fire to survive in its Ice Age, forest environment. Unfortunately, the tribe doesn't know how to actually create fire, but must (presumably) steal it from other tribes, or wait for the fortuitous lightning strike, literally. The tribe's fire is maintained and protected between encampments in the form of a live coal carried in moss inside a hollowed-out animal skull. Talk about pressure on the Keeper of the Flame! Anyway, while fleeing an attack by a vicious group of even more primitive ape-men, the tribe stumbles into a swamp, where the hot coal is accidentally doused. Oh, oh ... now what? The solution is to send three members of the group, led by the Everett Mcgill character, out into the larger world in a QUEST FOR FIRE, to be brought back before the rest perish of exposure.

There's no dialog, as we know it, between the human characters. Specifically for the film, a language consisting mainly of monosyllables and body gestures was devised, the latter by Desmond Morris, the renowned zoologist and human behaviorist, who wrote the 1967 book, THE NAKED APE. It's brilliantly done, and the audience has no trouble understanding the communicative interactions.

Along the way, the three knights-errant encounter the usual animal and human hazards, including a group of cannibals. From the latter they rescue a damsel in distress, a member of a distant plains-dwelling tribe captured to be eaten. The rescuers take her back to her people, who, lo and behold, know how to create fire from scratch.

My wife thinks I'm nuts for considering this one of the cleverest movies ever made, which simply proves that not everyone possesses a discriminating taste. The script, costuming, plot, photography, acting and "dialog" are all first rate. Moreover, the close-up camera shot of the Mcgill character's face when he first watches fire being made is, by itself, worth the price of the video rental and the gas it took to drive to the Blockbuster.

Rating:
Summary: Come on baby, Light My Fire!
Review: I LOVE this movie! Touching, gripping, scary, suspensful, moving and hilariously funny, no matter how many times I watch it (and I watch it a lot!) I am always amazed how emotionally involved I become with a group of characters who (it must be stated) have VERY little in common with ME (or anyone ELSE who has lived on earth in the past twenty thousand or so years!)

The characters, none of who have names or can speak, are marvellously three dimensional and avoid being 'Flintstone-esque' at all times. Top marks go to Ron Perlman as the slightly LESS intellectually gifted of the fire-seekers (Jean-Jacques Arnaud used him again to great effect as the deformed monk, 'Salvatori', in the wonderful 'Name of the Rose'.)

It doesn't really matter how anthropologically accurate QUEST FOR FIRE is - that's not the point. It's a movie to be watched and enjoyed and 'lost' in, and if nothing else, it makes you REAL glad that you don't live in Neolithic times; life on the tundra ain't easy!

Rating:
Summary: admirable and interesting, but skewed
Review: Most of what people will tell you about this movie is true. That it is ambitious, and reaches the level of its ambition. That its portrayal of the birth of civilization is unique, and all that. You also get to see Rae Dawn Chong jump around yelping with hardly a pelt to call her own ...

But it should be remembered that biases can lie within a work of craft that people who agree with those biases cannot see. And this is true of "Quest for Fire". I am afraid I cannot explain what I mean without revealing a bit of the plot. If you want no spoilers at all do not read on...

The important premise of this film is that small bands of people wandered the earth, uncaringly robbing and raping each other, sharing nothing between bands, especially the greatest property of all, the spark of fire, which none knew how to kindle.

Then (according to the script by Rosny and Brach) humans learned how to make the spark of fire, and this leap in technology rendered them friendlier and more peaceable. The dramatization of this in the film is added to famously by something I will not reveal.

The big problem is that history was probably not like this! For example, Westerners who stumbled on the Kalahari bushmen (a long time ago) noted that the bushmen traveled in small bands (much as the people in "Quest for Fire" do) but were extraordinarily peaceful and not violent about any property that they had.

The essential core premise of this lauded film makes no sense. Sparks of fire can be given away! If you give another a piece of food then you have less food, but if you give them a tiny twig that is aflame so that they can start their own fire, this is meaningless to you, and all-important to them. At this period of history people were probably giving flaming twigs to their neighbors left and right.

But its a good flick, nonetheless. Its core message is nonsense, but so what!

Rating:
Summary: quest for fire
Review: I like the Movie IT makes you think about mankind of long ago

Rating:
Summary: A movie that transports its audience through space and time.
Review: Quest for Fire is a presentaton through the cinema arts about the foundations of civilization. The things that are shown are fundamental and sophisticated simultaneously. They are group and blood bonds; sacrifice; tangeable and intangeable. The quest originates with a prehistoric tribe that has evolved socially due to the realization of the strength in there community and on the power of fire. Fire is the centerpiece of their communal settings, and ultimately there best tool for protection of their very lives. The group is forced from its home when they are raided by a less socially evolved, but physically stronger group that covets there fire. Once they have regrouped they choose three of their youngest and strongest to search out fire. The accomplishment of this presentation is as important to cinematography as some of Shakespear's plays are to theatre. The effect of this movie allows for the involvement of historical inquisitives with true artists. Artists who focussed on making use of technology to truely recreate historical vision. I first saw this movie on a premium movie channel within a year of its original release. I was fourteen then. I remembered it an picked it up some 12 years later. The fact alone that its impression, on me, lasted is an accomplishment as I am of the Star Wars generation and still blinded by the light of some of its special effects. I will say that I was and still am impressed by Quest For Fire. It portrayed an opinion of how life actually is without the things we value and protect. For example, there was the harsh cold of the marsh after the tribe was driven from its home. I know a particular family that lost its home, ironically, to fire. They reflect on it often and I can see the same types of shivers in their memories that the tribe members suffered on the marsh. The script and the acting touch the very important issues that family is about today. For example, commitment; the young leader of the search party is side tracked by a female of a different clan that his party comes accross during their quest. He follows her to her home village and experienced what must have been delicacies. It turns out that her tribe had mastered the producton of fire and could protect themselves against most pitfalls of their environment. They could create fire and protected themselves from those that would take fire, as fire was not there only technological advancement. They also had superior weaponry. Making the quest the search party is driven by somewhat trivial in their realm of understanding. The leader of the search party upon arriving at the village drank fresh milk (creme), he was shown how to protect his skin from the harsh sun, experienced the drive of a man that claimed a woman, given superior weapons, and ultimately, was driven to tears by witnessing the creation of fire. Through all these things he, with the help of his friends, returned home to complete the quest they set out to accomplish. However, had the other members of the search party experienced what their leader had and received the same treatment as their leader, they may have not been so interested in returning home so quickly. I shared the movie with a respected friend and we through conversing about it and watching it several times came to a greater understanding of each other. It is not uncommon that we get together on occasion and watch the movie; it is without fail that each time I and the people that I watch it with see something that was not noticed before. This is noteworthy considering I have seen the movie in its entirety roughly 10 times, and several times more piecing together partial viewings. I recommend it to anyone who appreciates cinema, but cinema from an unobtrusive view into social dynamics. In effect, life and death situations and their effects on individual and group character were depicted. The effects I am discussing are what allowed growth of community and civilization to develop.

Rating:
Summary: Very good in most places. Worth seeing.
Review: A vision of animal instincts making their way into consciousness. Many great scenes and insightful touches as to how we may have arrived at where we are today.