In "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," filmmaker Werner Herzog introduces us to the man with the crooked little finger and others of his time 32,000 years ago.

While the men who painted the bison, panthers, woolly mammoths, cave bears and lions and other beasts in the French cave are not in the film, the images that dominated their lives and minds are in 3-D.

Herzog gives us the best chance to travel into the abyss of time and connect with the minds of the men who came so long before us and produced the oldest known cave paintings in the world.

For me, the documentary was less entertaining than it was a meditation on the meaning of life. We worry about Internet speed, stock portfolios, gas prices, our prescription drugs and Facebook. These men were born and lived in an age of ice. It was an adrenaline-filled world of hunting in hunger and fear with bone-tipped spears, where man wasn't necessarily dominating.

The treasure of Chauvet cave, discovered in late 1994, is protected with a vault door. Inside, areas of the cave are covered with the bones of the grotto's ancient inhabitants - bear and lion among them, not man. The massive skulls alone tell a story, including one perched on a rock that became an alter for the early men. Footprints remain of cave bear, as do their numerous, deep scratches on the rock walls.

Torch swipes in the cave are visible from these brave early explorers and artists. Herzog said radiocarbon dating proved some of the burnt wood tested was 28,000 years ago. Red palm prints of one painter, the man's crooked finger a signature of his presence, dot one wall.

Because there is nowhere in the cave for people today to walk without ruining what's inside, a narrow, elevated metal walkway was put in place to allow scientists access to the cave's deepest recesses. From the walkway, with limited crew and equipment, Herzog captures the numerous paintings, skeletal remains, footprints, stalactites and stalagmites, and sounds of the cave. The French government granted Herzog four hours a day for nearly a week to film.

A section of rock near the cave's entrance collapsed 20,000 years ago, sealing it off, and was only found now by people searching for air seeping from crevices in the cliffs of southern France that would indicate the existence of a cave. The value inside was instantly recognized, and it was immediately sealed again. Scientists have learned from past discoveries how rapidly such treasure can be ruined. The breath of tourists destroyed other caves with mold infestations.

Because access is limited to such a select few scientists, Herzog's documentary becomes the only portal granted to the rest of us. That's the primary value of this documentary.

The paintings communicate what was likely central to the men's lives outside the cave. A group of horses stride in formation. Rhinos lock heads in struggle. There are hyenas, bulls and a voluptuous naked woman's mid-section. The artists, painting by torch light, used undulations in the rock surfaces of the cave to enhance their work. They experimented with the idea of motion in the rock art, giving some animals extra legs and open mouths. More than a dozen species are depicted.

Herzog, who narrates throughout, interviews scientists who analyze, catalogue and interpret Chauvet's contents.

The viewer hears from experts on the weapons used by the artists and their contemporaries. A spear throwing demonstration makes clearer the obvious: Few, if any, of us have the ability to spear and kill a reindeer or bison. We'd have no chance of surviving the predators of 30,000 years ago.

The audience gets to hear the sounds of a bone flute, the type of instrument played at the time the paintings were made. They see the animal-hide clothes worn by these men, and see hand-carved art made at that time depicting, again, more naked women's bodies.

True to the cave, Herzog leaves a lot unanswered. For example, there are the footprints of a child about 9 years old making his way through the cave. Next to his footprints are those of a wolf. Herzog said we might never know if the wolf tracked the boy, if their lives were separated by thousands of years, or if they walked side-by-side as companions.

The distance between us and the Chauvet rock artists might best be measured by what we might paint in a newly discovered cave in 2011, if we dared to enter.