Quest for Fire

Eighty thousand years ago, a tribe that has lost its fire sends three men to find more. They do not know how to make fire, only how to keep it. That is the film's whole decision: no modern language, no subtitles, no narrator. Anthony Burgess built a language for it and Desmond Morris designed the body movement, so the viewer proceeds by guessing as much as the characters do. Meeting another group who can make fire is the turning point. Jean-Jacques Annaud directed. It won the Academy Award for makeup and was shot in Kenya, Scotland and Canada. A real warning: the film contains sexual violence and cannibalism, presented as the reality of the period. With no dialogue, following the narrative also takes attention.