Alas, it gets worse. The narrator rambles on in the same demagogic vein about the “mutant albino” crocodiles, ending with a close-up shot of one of the small white reptiles staring bemusedly back at us from where it floats in the water, behind glass. Herzog continues with his inflammatory nonsense, wondering aloud: “When” the albinos are in Chauvet (he offers no explanation of how that will occur, of course, or how cold-blooded reptiles will survive a normal French winter), what will they think of the paintings?<\/p>\n
I am so aghast at this nonsense appended to a movie supposedly about something so beautiful and real<\/i> that, upon the second viewing of the movie, I am careful to copy down this gobbledygook as precisely as I can — because it’s so breathtakingly moronic that no one will believe me, I’m sure, and I want to have my facts straight. Herzog babbles pointlessly on with faux platitudes: “Nothing is real; nothing is certain. Is this an imaginary mirror? Are we nothing but albino crocodiles looking into the abyss of time when we look at the paintings?”<\/p>\n
The film closes with a sloppy “negative” hand print done in red, where the artist lays her hand on the wall, then sprays red paint around it to leave a clear silhouette. It looks much like some of the ones in Chauvet, although as I stare bemusedly at it — while the credits roll and we suffer through yet more droning violincello — I find myself wondering if this is as poorly rendered as it is due to being painted just for the movie.<\/p>\n