While pre-history might be a fascinating subject, its treatment in cinema was usually associated with exploitation genre, with the setting serving as cheap excuse for cheesy special effects and women or men in skimpy clothing. Serious and realistic depiction of pre-historic times was something quite rare and one of such examples can be found in The Clan of The Cave Bear, 1986 film directed by Michael Chapman.
The film is based on the eponymous best-selling novel by Jean M. Auel, first in popular Earth’s Children series. Plot is set around 35,000 years ago, when Europe was shared by two species of man – Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, the latter being direct ancestors of modern humans. Protagonist is Ayla, Cro-Magnon child who loses her family and wanders naked and helpless through wilderness after barely surviving encounter with a cave lion. She is discovered by the band of wandering Neandtherals and adopted by Iza (played by Pamela Reed), clan’s medicine woman. She and Creb (played by James Remar), clan’s shaman, begin to teach Ayla everything they know. As she grows older and becomes a woman (played by Daryl Hannah), Ayla begins to sense hostility from other clan members – she looks different, she is more intelligent and, to make things worse, insists on using weapons and taking part in hunt, which is something clan members consider unsuitable for women. The most hostile clan member is Broud (played by Thomas G. Waites), the clan leader’s son who uses every opportunity to verbally and physically abuse Ayla and later rapes her, which would result with Ayla getting pregnant and bearing a son.
Judging by the resources invested and talents involved, this film was quite an ambitious project. Music was composed by Alan Silvestri, and it represents rather solid work. Cinematographer Jan De Bont has put locations in Western Canada to good use. Highly respected film maker John Sayles was hired to write a screenplay and the producers even bothered to develop fictitious language for Neanderthal clan, which is brought to audience with the help of subtitles with narration by Salome Jens additionally filling the gaps. Unfortunately, director Michael Chapman, known mostly as cinematographer and for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, failed to make The Clan of the Cave Bear into coherent whole. His lack of experience is best seen in action scenes, which are often poorly directed and unconvincing. He also failed to solve problems with script, stemming for episodic plot and sometimes heavy-handed attempt to turn pre-historic protagonist into some sort of proto-feminist role model. Cast does what it can under the circumstances and that includes Daryl Hannah, who bravely tackles her role despite looking simply too modern and too beautiful for the story that takes place in a time when the life was short, hard and brutish. Pamela Reed and James Remar, despite being buried under heavy make up, leave much better impression and actually create sympathy for their characters. The weakest element of The Clan of the Cave Bear is its ending. Although based on the source novel, finale in which Ayla is about to begin another adventure, makes the whole film look unfinished. This cliffhanger-like approach could have made sense with the sequels of the original novel being adapted later known. Sequel was actually planned but the critical and box office flop of The Clan of the Cave Bear quashed any chance of such film ever seeing the light of day. This way The Clan of the Cave Bear could be recommended only to the most devout fans of Daryl Hannah or the most loyal readers of Auel’s work.
RATING: 4/10 (++)
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