#14 - Quest for Fire (1982)

Today I bring to you a movie that has long held a distinctive cachet: it is the only movie my parents ever walked out of - yes literally walked out of - at the movie theatre.  I don't know much about it other than it stars Ron Perlman (*snickers*) and my mom's impression of the movie is just to do a lot of Neanderthal-like grunting before talking about how terrible it was and how they walked out of it.  Not an auspicious beginning at all.

Our opening scene does, indeed, have Ron Perlman grunting.  Anything that happens from this point on will be completely new to me. Haha.

The soundtrack to the movie is extremely invasive.  This is no doubt in large part to the fact that there is no real dialogue.  These Cro-Magnons don't have a developed language as we would understand it, so to fill the time between cacophonies, we get thunderclaps, gospel choirs, trumpets and timpani, and nature sounds (lots of wind, tons and tons of birds, rain, wolves, etc.).

It seems as though our conflict is the loss of the fire they love.  Apparently they have not yet learned how to make fire, so the fire they had in the beginning must have been harnessed by some naturally occurring event.  And when their cave was raided by the Chewbaccas, the fire burned out (one of the Chewys ran away with one lit log, so presumably they wanted the fire?) and the Quest for Fire begins.

And let me just say: nothing's more awesome than watching Ron Perlman make out with tree branches.

This is a tough movie in so many ways: I don't know if I'm actually enjoying it (I'm leaning toward not really, for the most part); I don't know if it's actually a good movie (how historically accurate is it actually? The savagery and primitiveness seems probably as spot on as it gets); is my annoyance at the sounds of the characters justified (I lean toward yes, since this is an opinion more than anything else); is the acting good (You couldn't pay me to do this movie or anything like it, so I'll lean toward... meh); and, finally, how does the film look (It's aight.  Overall, some of these things are pretty cool.  The prosthetic fangs on the sabre-toothed tiger, the mammoths up close (but not the mammoth herd from afar, or the bears), some of the characters (most look exceptionally dirty and ugly, so that's gotta be close.)

Random question during the viewing: were there many different "tribes" of these pre-modern men? How likely were some of these conflicts?

All in all, the movie wasn't quite as bad as walking out of it, but neither do I have much to write about it in the way of... well, anything.  This movie simply exists; it was made, some people saw it; I've seen it now; some rutting happens; there's an intragenerational cautionary tale in there somewhere. And, uh, I neither recommend nor warn you away from seeing it.

Score: Ambivalence, as I was only marginally happy for them when they had fire, and didn't really feel that badly when they didn't.

(4.5/10)