Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams has been a bit… forgotten over the last 15 years. Thankfully, a 6K restoration, announced by IFC on Monday, will soon claim some IMAX screens in the U.S. to remind people of what Herzog accomplished back in 2010.
While not as lauded as the adventuring documentarian’s Grizzly Man or as politically piercing as Lessons of Darkness or Into the Abyss, Cave of Forgotten Dreams might be Herzog’s most awe-inspiring art-forward film. Herzog used state-of-the-art 3D cameras (hot off James Cameron’s Avatar) to capture unprecedented views of the Chauvet Cave in Southern France, bringing 32,000-year-old cave drawings to life on the big screen. Spliced with bits of scientists and artists reflecting on the power of those images — a glimpse into the evolution of creativity itself — made for a profound experience, but one that’s been hard to replicate over the last 15 years.
Herzog’s rep has also changed over 15 years. Though he was always an outspoken personality, known for his thick German accent and poetic narration, he’s become less known as a provocateur who once ate a shoe to the guy who introduced the world to Grogu. The rerelease of Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a much-needed reclamation of his reputation as an artist transfixed on human accomplishment (and occasionally, the apocalypse, but he’s pretty pro-human).
As the news release for the 6K rerelease makes clear, Cave of Forgotten Dreams didn’t arrive into the world fully baked. According to IFC, “at the time, production faced significant technical limitations. Many visual imperfections were effectively ‘baked in’ due to both the early state of 3D filmmaking in 2010 and the extreme time constraints imposed during shooting.” As the video below illustrates, the remastering stands to illustrate details in these cave drawings that not even Herzog himself could have seen while he sat at his editing bay cobbling this mini masterpiece together.
To see these images again will be worth the time: The Chauvet Cave contains hundreds of images depicting at least 13 animal species — unusually dominated by predators like lions, rhinos, and bears rather than typical animals — alongside enigmatic human-like figures. Its preservation and complexity reshaped our understanding of Paleolithic creativity and culture. Witnessing it in person certainly rattled Herzog; now audiences will have the chance to see what he truly saw years ago (in eye-popping 3D!).
Special presentations of the 6K remaster will play in select IMAX theaters nationwide on April 15 and April 19. A full theatrical re-release will roll out wider across the U.S. on April 24.