The Clan of the Cave Bear
Originally posted a long time ago on Paul’s Reviews Page
I’ll be rating movies on a three zone, 5-star scale. Each movie will be rated
on “Visual Appeal”, “Audio Appeal” and “Story Appeal”. Each of these three
zones can be rated up to 5 stars (or asterisks…. they load faster than
.GIFs)
The Clan of the Cave Bear
V: ****
A: ***
S: ***.5
Synopsis: An orphaned Cro-Magnon girl is taken in and raised by a Neandethal Medicine Woman.
Thoughts:
Many times I had seen VHS and DVD copies of Clan of the Cave Bear in stores, and was curious…. it had a certain B-Movie air about it that left me thinking it probably wasn’t all that good. Daryl Hannah is not one of my favorite actresses. And, more times than I can count, I’ve seen good intentioned attempts at portraying primitive or aboriginal peoples botched to the point of being unwatchable. Recently, I saw a copy on DVD for $6.99, and I finally decided to give it a chance.
Clan of the Cave Bear is the story of a little girl who gets separated from her own people and ends up being adopted by another group. It would be one thing if she was just another race… but the girl was Cro-Magnon and the people who adpted her were Neanderthal. This posed some deep conflict issues, and presented some serious challenges.
My initial suspicions about the B-Movie feel were somewhat allayed, and the portrayal of the culture and people was reasonably plausable. The story had some meat to it, and there were some worthy themes. The score, by Alan Silvestri, was, for the most part, fitting and mostly transparent.
One thing I found enjoyable about the movie, and this may just be me, is the fact that the Clan had their own language, which consisted of a combination of utterances and gestures. The viewer’s window into the meaning of the language was sparse subtitles. Once a basic gesture or utterance was presented a few times, the subtitles for it seemed to taper off. More involved “dialog” still had the subtitles, which was very helpful.
Over all, I found Clan of the Cave Bear engaging and satisfying. If you can find it at a reasonable price (I’d say $6.99 is pretty darned reasonable), I’d recommend it.