Still can't get those cave paintings out of my head
Am lost in awe as to how an apparently simple documentary can be so much more than the sum of its parts. There's nothing there; and yet there is everything. It's such a small canvas and yet it encompasses a huge insight into our human experience. Simple materials, yes, but in the hands of an expert. In the same way that a stick of charcoal in the hands of the cave artist can draw a single sweeping line that becomes a lion... and more than a lion, because it's saying something about the artist's relationship with his subjects too... does that make sense?
The camera spends a lot of time looking at people's faces, as well as at the paintings. And after a while, different characters emerge and you start to see the different ways in which they relate to their study subject. We are all searching for truth. Art is one way to discover it; so is science. Both are valid and it's a mistake for either to dismiss the other.
One of the most insightful comments by any of the scientists is that in order to understand the cave, you have to go outside it. And when Herzog asks where, he says, Everywhere... the whole world.
Nothing is irrelevant to the big picture...