Its the closest most of us will ever get to see these closed-to-the-public 30,000 year old art works ! This film is our ONLY chance to "be there". The images of the paintings are beautifully done !! ...BUT: .. the film is too long, and it does not use that length to explore any information about technique, art materials, social context, and/or motivation for the making of the paintings. Surely there are worthy ideas and technical discoveries about the creation of these paintings that could have been shared with us !?! BUT it is a 'Must See' for those of us who are intrested in what it is to be human.

This is not a slick Hollywood production. It is fascinating and frustrating to watch. Your kids likely will not sit through it. The first third is good but then it takes great side trips in to pure cheese. It's a shame that the sheer overwhelming beauty of the art and the cave itself is interfered with by the crappy directing. Watch it for the amazing paintings; try to make it as far as the woman scientist who loves the paintings so much she can almost hear the animals. You may want to turn down the annoying music. Oh and if you make it that far - skip the Postscript. It's just silly.

32,000 years ago, man started drawing on the walls of Chauvet Cave in France. Then, some thousands of years later, the cave was closed up by a landslide. This cave contains the oldest drawings drawn by man that have been discovered. And these drawings are older than previous discoveries by more than 15,000 years. So looking at these gives modern man his oldest look at what prehistoric man was thinking about. A fascinating contemplation of ancient man.

lovely, absorbing look at the grotte chauvet. and none of those dreadful re-enactments to spoil it!

Authenticity is never questioned but it is something that came up for me. It is my understanding that Toulouse Lautrec's early sketches (and even his later work at L'ecole des Beaux Arts) bear a striking likeness to the cave paintings. The Toulouse region is just a hop, skip and a jump from the Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, where the caves are located. This vital information is omitted from the documentary.

Fabulous visuals of our artistic heritage. This is the final cave described in Jean Auel's Land of the Painted Caves.

VERY GOOD, BUT TOO LONG.

Haunting, beautiful documentary giving the viewer a chance to connect with the past and wonder about the people who created such striking art thousands of years in the past.

An amazing look at amazing artifacts. This documentary has something for everyone -- views of the film makers descending into the cave, discussion by experts of the paintings and other archeological findings, and, finally, a lengthy walk through the cave with no narration at all to distract from the experience. I found it altogether absorbing.