Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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71 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A trio of Cro-Magnons go off in search of fire..., November 16, 2002
Already people are fretting about this movie Mel Gibson is making about the last days of Christ in which everybody will be speaking Latin and/or Arameic without subtitles. Well, if you are a-feared of such a prospect you can warm up on 1981 Canadian/French production from Jean-Jacques Annaud. "Quest for Fire" ("Le Guerre du feu") should be a good test for you because in this story, set among the Cro-Magnons of eighty thousand years ago, you know neither the characters nor the plot.The genesis for this story is quite primal. A tribe of Cro-Magnons is attacked by its neighbors and has its fire stolen. This requires a small band to go forth and seek fire, which is necessary to ensure the tribe's survival. The trio consists of the brains of the outfit, Naoh (Everett McGill), the hulking brute, Amoukar (Ron Perlman), and the wiry comic relief, Gaw (Nameer El-Kadi). Along the way they hook up with Ika (Rae Dawn Chong), a young woman who is rescued from slavery because she actually knows how to MAKE fire, as opposed to waiting for lightning to hit something and start only a very small little fire. The authenticity of the "language" in this film comes from the work of authors Anthony Burgess("A Clockwork Orange") who created the spoken languages and Desmond Morris ("The Naked Ape") who worked on the body language and gestures. I have certainly met a few people who were bothered by the lack of sub-titles, but never anyone who did not understand what was going on or what was being communicated. Without your eyes darting to the bottom of the screen throughout the movie you can pay attention to the nuanced performances and each viewing allows you to further amplify the dialogue you are conjuring up in your mind. For realism, "Quests of Fire" has everything from "One Million B.C." to "Clan of the Cave Bear" beat big time. Ultimately, this story is not just a quest for fire, but a quest for love at a time when we think men simply knocked a woman over the head with a club and dragged her home to his cave, and if the film had not suggested the birth of true civilization came with the discovery of the missionary position, this film would enjoy a much better reputation. Annaud was probably trying to make a point about the importance of romance as a contributing factor to human evolution, but that idealization goes up in smoke when Ika shows Naoh a better way of doing it (it was almost enough to cost this film a star, but overall the ambition and execution on this one is too good to be that petty over one small screw up). For now the biggest complaint is that "Quest for Fire" is not yet available in wide-screen, because Claude Agostini's cinematography loses a lot in the scan-and-pan version of this decidedly "foreign" film.
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42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It is so Cold Without Fire!, April 26, 2005
Undoubtedly Jean-Jacques Annaud is an unconventional director. With only ten films done up to this moment he has managed to impact the audience more than once.
His movies in brief: "Black & White in Color" (1976) won the Best Foreign Film Oscar, "The Name of the Rose" (1986), "The Bear" (1988), the controversial "The Lover" (1992) and "Enemy at the Gates" (2001) a realistic recount of the Battle for Stalingrad completes his works.
In "Quest for Fire" ("La Guerre du Feu 1981) French Cesar Award, Academy of Sci-fi Award and Best Make-up Oscar, tell the story of a cave-man in search of fire, with a vocabulary almost reduced to grunts and growls.
A Cro-Magnon tribe is deprived, after a combat, of its major treasure: fire.
They know the value of fire but hasn't the technique to produce it by themselves. So a group of three tribe-men start the Quest for Fire, a sort of prehistoric Grail Quest.
In their journey they encounter other tribes with different stages of culture; ranging from bestial cannibalistic to fire "technocrats".
They have time to rescue an endangered stone-age lady and of course the hero falls in love with her... and discovers many interesting new possibilities.
There is an amazing anthropological reconstruction work by far better than other filmic intents as "The Clan of the Cave Bear".
Anthony Burgess (author of "The Mechanical Orange") has created a neo-lingua for this movie and Desmond Morris (author of "The Naked Ape") all corporal and gestural language.
The actors and actresses under heavy make-up deliver a very convincing performance, depending mostly on mimics to express themselves.
Musical score in charge of multi-nominated to Cesar Awards Philippe Sarde, underline the action.
Finally a special mention must be done to praise Jean-Jacques Annaud work, who as director, takes a huge risk and complies with honors.
This is a great film for audiences interested in history, anthropology or just uncommon adventures.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
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52 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Film, February 29, 2000
Quest for Fire is a film that will not only alter one's perception of modern human behavior but also show the dawn of what we call human civilization. This movie portrays man distilled to his original raw instincts, many of which in today's ultra modern society would be denounced as barbaric and foreign. It is hard to fathom that 8,000 years ago our predecessors had pretty much the same cognitive ability as modern humans do. It is simply the continual growth of technology and civilization that separates us from the characters in Quest for Fire. After knowing this morsel of knowledge, it was apparent that this movie not only defines life in the ancient world but also paints vividly shocking portrait of who we really are. Simply put, watching this film is quite humbling. The film climaxes when the main character discovers that man can create fire. This moment is quite inspirational and thought provoking simply because it is more important than man discovering the atom or the structure of DNA. That is, man is now capable of changing his environment instead of being controlled by it. In essence, the progress of humanity is a long and detailed history. In order to understand who we really are we must learn from where we came. Quest for Fire delivers a wonderful image of where we once were and who we are now.
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