Jean-Jacques Annaud · 1981 · survival

Jean-Jacques Annaud's 1981 film, told almost entirely without comprehensible language. Eighty thousand years ago, three men of a Paleolithic tribe journey across a primeval world to recover fire after their own is lost, encountering rival tribes, monstrous beasts, and at last a people who hold the secret of making flame itself.

1. 1
   The Ulam Lands

   Eighty thousand years ago a tribe loses its precious fire, and three men set out across a hostile prehistoric world to find more.

2. 2
   The Great Swamp

   They cross treacherous marsh and tundra, hunted by wolves and a sabre-toothed cat, knowing how to use fire but not yet how to make it.

3. 3
   The Cannibal Lands

   Among a tribe of cannibals they free a young woman, Ika, of the more advanced Ivaka people.

4. 4
   The Ivaka Camp

   Ika leads them to her people, who possess the astonishing secret of making fire from nothing but wood and friction.

5. 5
   The Ulam Lands

   They carry the gift of fire, and of knowledge, back home to their waiting tribe.