Quest for Fire

Quest for Fire (La Guerre du Feu)(1981)

Runtime: 100 minutes

Directed by: Jean-Jacques Annaud

Starring: Everett McGill, Ron Perlman, Rae Dawn Chong, Nicholas Kadi, various different actors representing various tribes, including several professional wrestlers

From: A few different French and Canadian companies

Now here is a worthwhile Stone Age movie. Out of Darkness was a massive letdown for me so I wanted to finally discuss this famed motion picture. Regrettably, all the legal streams of the film (in the United States, at least) are of a terrible VHS rip, at least judging by the print on Prime. As the copy on YouTube isn’t great either, I had to visit “the bowels of the Internet” once more and went with a 720p rip instead of attempting any deeper digging for 1080p. The effort was worth it.

The setting here was 80,000 years ago, where homo sapiens evolved at different rates, at least according to the film. Perhaps it’s not the most scientifically accurate, but in this case who really cares? After an opening scroll explaining the importance of fire and how tribes had to find it rather than create it themselves, one clan’s fire is extinguished after an attack. A trio-including Everett McGill & Ron Perlman in his movie debut-go on the titular quest which takes them across all sorts of landscapes (everywhere from Quebec and Iceland to Kenya; how curious) and they meet Rae Dawn Chong along the way.

I’ll mention this aside now as leaving it until the end would result in a downer to conclude the review. The trio meet several different tribes throughout; one featured a few professional wrestlers. There was The Great Antonio, an actual strongman who was extremely eccentric. Giant Haystacks was another enormous human being who competed against the likes of Big Daddy in the UK. Then, there was Adrian Street, a glam rocker Bowie/androgynous type who passed away this past summer. He competed in the United States for years but before, in England once wrestled… Jimmy Savile. Yes, Savile had some joke “matches”, and Street roughed him up for his disrespect. Street had no idea at the time that Jimmy was such a horrible monster. As a Yankee, I’d never even heard of Savile until the truth about him broke. As I’m sure the Netflix documentary about him is a tough watch, this is probably the only time I get to mention that SOB.

Anyhow… the movie also has a simple plot yet I was captivated throughout. The trio have quite the adventure that includes meeting the other tribes & encountering various animals, usually extinct in modern times. The movie’s only dialogue is ancient languages created for the film that aren’t subtitled; all the other cues are presented to the viewer so you’re never off in the wilderness bewildered as to the happenings. This plus the bold score from Philippe Sarde enveloped me in this world-a unique world presented in a unique way. Having to hunt for a decent print is unfortunate but was worth the effort… as will be me in the future experiencing more from director Jean-Jacques Annaud.