Quest for Fire

Quest for Fire (1981), or La guerre du feu, is a French film depicting primitive man’s struggle to attain fire in Middle Paleolithic Europe. This movie fascinated me as a kid, but I haven’t seen it for nearly two decades. I recently decided to watch it again, to see if adulthood would ruin the magic. After 35 years, it still holds up as a cinematic achievement. Written by Gérard Brach, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, and based on a Belgian novel of the same name by J.H. Rosny, it stars Everett McGill, Ron Perlman, Nicholas Kadi, and Rae Dawn Chong. This was Ron Perlman’s first film. Jean-Jacques Annaud also directed The Name of the Rose (1986), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), and Enemy at the Gates (2001). Quest for Fire follows four Paleolithic humans as they search for a source of fire, the only thing that provides warmth, light, and security in a hostile world. As the film opens, the Wagabu, a savage tribe of ape-like Neanderthals, attacks a tribe of Homo sapiens, the Ulam, as they lounge in their cave. After a fierce battle, the Ulam scatter and find themselves in a marsh, where their pilot light (for lack of a better term) is extinguished. The tribal elder sends three men, Naoh (Everett McGill), Amoukar (Ron Perlman), and Gaw (Nicholas Kadi), to find a new source of fire, since they cannot create it themselves. Along the way, Naoh, Amoukar, and Gaw rescue Ika (Rae Dawn Chong) from a tribe of red-haired cannibals, the Kzamm. Ika belongs to the Ivaka, an advanced tribe of Homo sapiens. The Ivaka have mastered building shelter, using gourds as cups and bowls, atlatl, and most importantly, the ability to make fire with a hand drill. Together, the four return fire to the Ulam, but not before defeating a rival faction using their newly acquired, advanced weaponry. After all these years, Quest for Fire holds up so well partially because there were no special effects. Most scenes were shot in a single take, and the dialog consists of grunts, gestures, and a primitive language created by novelist Anthony Burgess. All the animals are played by actual animals, even the mammoths. The mammoths, I admit, look goofy, but I was surprised to learn the filmmakers used circus elephants to portray them. Like The Revenant (2015), Quest for Fire features a bear attack, but unlike The Revenant, the bear in Quest for Fire is 100 percent real, not CGI. There’s something unnerving about watching actual lions prowl beneath a flimsy tree, waiting for the three helpless cavemen to fall, as opposed to the fake, CGI monstrosities. Quest for Fire was filmed in Canada, Scotland, Iceland, and Kenya. The wilderness settings are both desolate and breathtaking. The main characters range over rocky caves, swamps, forests, marshes, and vast plains, battling the elements, starvation, wild animals, quicksand, and other Paleolithic humans. The conditions were so harsh, Ron Perlman and Everett McGill suffered frostbite, and the set designer contracted anthrax. The transition from animal to human is a theme running through the movie. As a more primitive tribe, Ulam males mount their females from behind. Noah does this with Ivaka at first, but later she teaches him the missionary position, symbolic of a more emotional, more human coupling. As the film closes, we see Noah lovingly cradling a pregnant Ivaka, showing humanity’s future. In contrast, the apish Wagabu are a positively nightmarish glimpse at humanity’s distant past. Screaming, savage, using sharpened animal bones as weapons, they personify the base survival instinct. I’ve read the DVD actually contains subtitles translating the primitive language in the film. When Quest for Fire was originally released in theaters, it didn’t have subtitles, and I think the filmmakers intended us to watch it that way. There’s something universal about the interaction between the characters, and subtitles just distract from that. What the characters say doesn’t really matter–it’s how they say it, the emotions they convey. Imagine trying to communicate with someone from an alien culture you’ve never encountered before. How would you work together to survive? That’s part of the experience of the film. It’s hard to judge the accuracy of a movie like this, in a genre that’s so typically outlandish. So, technically, saber-tooth cats lived in North America and not Europe. At least there are no mammoths helping to build the pyramids or dinosaurs running around. The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) is the only other movie to come close to trying to accurately portray prehistoric humanity, and its acting, costumes, and settings are almost laughable in comparison. Quest for Fire stands on its own as the most realistic portrayal of the Paleolithic Age ever recorded on film.

One of my favorite movies of all time. Even with no dialog the plot is easy to follow.

Enjoyed this film. One of three.

. . . if not for historical accuracy. But this movie did try. The genre of serious (not "dinosaurs and daggers") films that strive for scientific accuracy while depicting prehistoric human life is tiny, but with Quest for Fire the French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud did make the effort: Guttural simple-syllabic languages, alongside developing, more sophisticated languages among various competing prehistoric human tribes with the associated varying levels of tool development. Sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths, and, in another nod to scientific accuracy, no dinosaurs depicted coexisting with humankind. Really, the only major element holding the film back in terms of accuracy would be that Quest for Fire is set 80,000 years ago, which would be too recent for the events portrayed here; rather, if it had been set hundreds of thousands of years in the past-- perhaps even one million years or so B.C.E. --then the problems of prehistoric accuracy would more or less melt away. But the director nonetheless made a sincere, strong effort, and that in and of itself is worthy of praise. A couple of vital notes: if the purchaser of this DVD is inclined toward using it for educational purposes, be warned that there is prolific nudity, especially of the lead actress Rae Dawn Chong. And there is a lot of explicit violence. So parental guidance is definitely recommended; and also, there are no subtitles for the dialogue, which is from languages specially composed for this film. Instead, viewers will have to interpret what they see based on the actions and gestures shown as well as environmental context.

Really good Movie 🎬 would recommend it.

I am a neanderthal and this movie was recommended to me. I think everyone needs to watch it once. Once was enough for me. It's pretty bonkers. I enjoyed the part with the mammoths. If I ever play it again it will be for my friends when we are all high. I like foreign films.

Truth

nothing to write home about

Bellissimo film. Raccomandato

Really pleased to see a UK release for this as I was very close to buying the german version that is out there. This release had an early review from ukhorrorscene.com/quest-for-fire-1981-bluray-review-second-sight-films/ and they gave it a thumbs up for quality and the extras which differ to the german release. There was not much in the way of audio and video quality other than a "wow, it looks amazing , the scenery (and there is a lot of scenery) is just stunning and the colours are bright and vivid" but hopefully this gives you something to go on if you were thinking of buying. Having decided to purchase this release on the strength of the review above I would say the Blu Ray picture quality is mixed - the early scenes have a lot of grain but some of the later ones seems very good indeed. Overall, I guess, this is probably the best you are going to get for this title so I would say it is well worth getting the blu ray for the best possible presentation available right now. Audio seems OK but there is limited going on in terms of dialogue of course! Strangely I can't seem to access the HD audio track with my amp reporting a basic DTS 5.1 source but will check this further to be sure. As mentioned though this is not a film for demonstrating the audio capabilities of your system! A significant amount of extras have been included with two commentaries, making of videos and lots of snippets covering different aspects of bringing the film to like such as how they created the mammoths! The film itself has a small cut for UK release (the wolf scene which gets hit by the thrown stick that is alight) but this doesn't spoil the film in anyway. Overall I would recommend this release. The price is good and it stands up to repeated viewing if you like the Caveman genre - certainly not like anything else out there such as the 1,000,000 years BC Raquel Welch film! Highly Recommended.

Great that this classic movie is available on bluray. It is a very realistic interpretation of how life might have been when control of fire made the difference between life and death for a clan of Neanderthals.

Good picture great movie

アメリカ版でデータ形式も違うので，映らないかなと覚悟はしてました（送料含め1000円未満なので，賭けでした）。もしかしたらＰＣくらいでは見られるかなと思ったのですが，やはりダメでした。残念！