Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams is one of the highest grossing independently released documentaries at the box office in 2011. Herzog’s exploration of the Chauvet Caves in France, the site of the oldest known cave paintings (dated older than 32,000 years) was an unlikely hit, but the director’s unique approach shows the cinematic potential of the science documentary genre.

The film concentrates partially on the challenge of navigating the cave, for the film crew as well as the scientists, but it also questions what the cave can and can’t tell us about human experience. Utilising facts, diagrams and interviews with experts, Herzog creates a film that is partly a study of the cave and its findings and partly the total opposite. Herzog aims to create a deep sense of mystery about those human beings who created the initial cave paintings. Interviewing one of the scientists working on the cave, Herzog questions what we can know about those who once occupied the cave; his inquiry gains the response “we will never know, the past is definitely lost.” It is this air of mystery that is central to Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Herzog does not want to know everything about those who created the cave paintings, but he wants to evoke a mystery which is incredibly compelling.

While it is common within the documentary genre (particularly in the science documentary) to present facts and certainty, Herzog understands that as an audience it is the questions brought about by films that truly generate interest. As well as this Herzog attempts to generate scenes of pure experience, where we are not administered with information, but immersed in the feeling of being in the cave. The group of scientists and film crew stand still in attempt to hear their heart beats; this places us in the moment and makes us wonder if those men who created the cave paintings ever did the same.

It is the mystery and sense of experience that Cave of Forgotten Dreams creates that has made it a hit. This is no ordinary science documentary.