Quest for Fire

 

(1981) Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud; Written by Gérard Brach; Based on the novel by J.H. Rosny Sr.; Starring: Everett McGill, Rae Dawn Chong, Ron Perlman, Nicholas Kadi, and Naseer El-Kadi; Available on Blu-ray and DVD 

Rating: ****½

 

“I thought I was making this crap caveman movie. I found out that this guy (Jean-Jacques Annaud) had won an Academy Award for ‘Black and White in Color,’ and he was a distinguished filmmaker. By the time I got nervous, I already had the role, so I didn’t trip myself up.” – Ron Perlman, on auditioning for Quest for Fire (Excerpted from 2017 Variety interview)

It’s no big surprise that most film depictions of early humankind are somewhat lacking in veracity. Whether due to lack of budget, research, or by design, most caveman movies end up looking silly, bordering on self-parody, or straight-out comedies. By default, filmmakers and production companies preferred a more fanciful recreation of primitive people, grunting gibberish, wearing very little, and more often than not, walking amongst dinosaurs (even though the mighty beasts died out many millions of years before our earliest ancestors were on the scene).* Few filmmakers bothered with a “serious” depiction about our early ancestors. One notable exception was Stanley Kubrick’s “Dawn of Man” segment of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which served as a point of reference for French director Jean-Jacques Annaud. Far from the norm, Quest for Fire would reflect the combined efforts of anthropologists, linguists, and many other talented researchers and artists to create a more authentic experience. After three-and-a-half years of development, and an exhaustive search for locations around the world,  filming** commenced in Glencoe, Scotland, Nairobi, Kenya, and Northern Ontario, Canada.*** Budgeted at $12 million, Annaud’s film faced numerous hurdles to overcome, not the least of which were strict Canadian regulations, requiring a certain percentage of Canadian actors, makeup artists and editors. 

* Fun Fact #1: According to Annaud, he purposely wanted to avoid making something like Hammer’s One Million Years B.C. (1966) or Prehistoric Women (1967). 

** Fun Fact #2: In his DVD commentary, Annaud noted that everything was shot live, without post-production trickery. There were very few second takes. 

*** Fun Fact #3: Original plans were to film in Iceland, with its primordial landscape, but shooting was called off due to delays from an ongoing actors’ strike and bad weather.

Set 80,000 years in the past, when early humans were just gaining a foothold at the top of the food chain, they endured multiple threats from creatures and hostile tribes, in defense of the one rare commodity that determined who would survive – the possession of fire. When a Neanderthal tribe (the Ulam people) is ambushed by a savage clan of pre-humans (the Wagabou tribe), they set out to make a new home, carrying their precious fire in a crude lantern fashioned from animal skin and bones. In their haste to relocate, their fire is accidentally extinguished. Three are chosen to bring it back to the tribe: Naoh (Everett McGill), Amoukar (Ron Perlman), and Gaw (Nameer El-Kadi).* As our intrepid protagonists set out on their adventure, dangers lurk around every corner, including a pair of hungry sabretooth cats,** who chase our intrepid protagonists up a tree, a stately herd of wooly mammoths,***/**** and a hostile tribe of cannibals (the Kzamm). But all isn’t misery and strife, when they find a new friend with Ika (Rae Dawn Chong)***** a representative from the Ivaka tribe. Over the course of their travels, they will learn to cooperate with each other, and not only gather fire, but learn to create it.******  

* Fun Fact #4: Nameer El-Kadi had a twin brother, Naseer, who played a fellow member of the Ulam tribe in early scenes. Naseer also stood in for Nameer when his brother was unavailable to shoot a scene involving the tribe’s run-in with a bear. 

** Fun Fact #5: Ligers (half-lion/half-tiger), equipped with prosthetic teeth, were utilized for the “sabretooth” cats. 

*** Fun Fact #6: In a scene when the trio of Neanderthals encounter a herd of wooly mammoths, the filmmakers employed children made up to resemble the leads, so the creatures would appear more massive. 

**** Fun Fact #7: The “mammoths” were 14 circus elephants fitted with masks, specially created hairpieces made from knotted yak hair, and enlarged prosthetic tusks. 

***** Fun Fact #8: According to Annaud, Chong wasn’t an actor when he discovered her on the beach in California, but he persuaded her to act in his movie. 

****** Fun Fact #9: For a pivotal scene in which an Ivaka tribesman creates fire…the filmmakers hired a Masai tribesman

While McGill, Perlman, and El-Kadi do an extraordinary job as the three Neanderthal leads, Rae Dawn Chong deserves special mention for one of the film’s most challenging roles as Ika, a Homo Sapiens woman, who spends a large portion of the film clad in nothing but body paint (actually layers of clay and charcoal, inspired by modern tribes). Much to the delight and dismay of her somewhat dim Neanderthal counterparts, she schools them in the ways of making fire, humor (reacting to a rock falling on Amoukar’s head with laughter), and instructing Naoh in the art of lovemaking. The sex and nudity depicted in the movie are presented in a matter-of-fact manner, not intended to be titillating or exploitive, but reminiscent of an anthropological study.

Quest for Fire invites us to immerse ourselves in the prehistoric world, starting with Annuad’s insistence on no subtitles (despite the urging of a short-sighted film executive). Instead, the filmmakers trust us to infer what’s happening onscreen through the characters’ facial expressions, gesticulations and body language. One of the film’s conceits is that not a single word of modern language is spoken. Instead, author/linguist Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange), devised a language*/** for the Neanderthals, based on Indo-European roots. British zoologist Desmond Morris arranged sessions for the cast to mimic apelike behaviors, and Canadian mime Gary Schwartz (who appears as Rouka, from the Ulam tribe), instructed the actors on movement. Great care also went into the makeup,* to ensure the characters appropriately resembled their parts.   

* Fun Fact #10: The language used by the Ulam tribe included 350 distinct words. 

** Fun Fact #11: Because Burgess was only available for a relatively short time, there was no time to devise a completely different language for Ika’s tribe. Instead, the filmmakers recorded native Inuit speakers for their dialogue. 

*** Fun Fact #12: The elaborate Academy-award-winning makeup (by Sarah Monzani and Michèle Burke) for the principal characters, comprised of five separate pieces, took five hours to apply and two hours to remove. The wigs were designed in three pieces instead of one piece (as in most other caveman films), to make the characters’ hair look more authentic. 

45 years after its release, Quest for Fire remains the gold standard of caveman movies – the touchstone that all other films like it are compared against. While no one alive has ever heard a Neanderthal speak or watched sabretooth cats relentlessly pursue their prey, Quest for Fire’s compelling images are probably the closest thing to a documentarian traveling 80,000 years into the past to observe our ancestors.  

 

Sources for this article: DVD commentary by Jean-Jacques Annaud; “Quest for Fire – Pretty Department, Dirty Work,” by Suzanna Plowright (Cinema Canada, September 1981); “Final Cut: My First Time in Variety – Ron Perlman” (Variety, Sept. 20, 2017); “Canadian Regulations Under Fire As ‘Quest’ Shoot Continues,” by Gloria Kissin (The Hollywood Reporter, May 5, 1981)