QUEST FOR FIRE

   Film (1981). ICC-Cine-Trail (Montreal)/Belstar Productions/Stephan Films (Paris). Dir Jean-Jacques Annaud, starring Everett McGill, Ron Perlman, Nameer El-Kadi, Rae Dawn Chong. Screenplay by Gerard Brach, based on La Guerre du Feu (1909) by J.H. ROSNY aine. 100 mins. Colour.

   This Canadian/French coproduction dramatizes the 1909 French classic prehistoric romance by J.H. Rosny aine, trans as The Quest for Fire: A Novel of Prehistoric Times (cut trans 1967 US). Great care (possiblymisplaced, since who can know?) was taken to make it all seem authentic, from positions adopted for love-making (body language credited to Desmond Morris) and an imaginary agglutinative language with a vocabulary of about200 sounds (linguistics credited to Anthony BURGESS). The tribe's fire has gone out, and three tribesmen go on a quest to find fresh fire (it is a kind of Holy Grail), confronting a more primitive cannibal tribe and then the more sophisticated Ivaka, who know how to make fire. As an exercise in imaginary ANTHROPOLOGY it is mildly impressive (though it has its cod aspects, its 1909 original not being the last word in prehistoric insight); as story-telling, it covers familiar generic ground, but is all very enjoyable - especially the arbitrary herd of mammoths (elephants wearing rugs) - and rather touching. The Kenyan and Scottish highlands, beautifully photographed, stand in for prehistoric Europe.

   PN