Quest for Fire

'Body Language and Gestures by Desmond Morris; Special Languages Created by Anthony Burgess'. With these eye-catching credits, Quest for Fire boldly states its claims to dance along the abyss of the ridiculous. That it manages not to fall in is something of an achievement, but not a sufficient one to justify 100 minutes of grunts and hand-waving in the service of an otherwise unremarkable story. What watchability the film does have is probably due to a screenplay by Gerard Brach, Polanski's regular co-writer. Still, if you have a weakness for exotic scenery (filmed in Canada, Scotland, Kenya), and some curiosity about the everyday life of prehistoric humankind, you will probably take some mild pleasure in this saga of the Ulam tribe's search for a way to light their fire.