Is "The Solutrean" Really Just About a Boy and His Dog?

8/8/2017

Faithful readers of my blog may remember several posts from 2016 and 2015 (here and here) about the production of a movie titled The Solutrean. My interest in the movie centered mostly around the question of how much, if any, of the storyline would revolve around the central claim of the Solutrean hypothesis (that Late Pleistocene Europeans colonized eastern North America). I was also interested in the film for the possibility that we'd get a good cinematic treatment of life in the Upper Paleolithic.

The trailer for the film (now named Apha) was released in mid July. I've watched it three times and haven't noticed anything in it that screams "boat trip across the Atlantic ice." I also haven't been left with much hope it will be a good cinematic treatment of life in the Upper Paleolithic.

Here is the trailer: watch it yourself and then we'll discuss.

I see all the things you'd expect to see in in a "caveman" film: campfires, a saber-toothed cat, mammoth-skull houses, people flintknapping in a circle, etc. The lifeway depicted seems focused on hunting terrestrial large game, with one scene showing our Solutrean friends attempting some kind of bison hunt by throwing spears into an amazing precise line in front of the charging herd. (It's hard to tell if the intent of the hunt was to drive bison over a cliff -- the cliff appears to be about a mile high, so . . .).

Apparently something goes awry with the plan, as the protagonist gets tossed over a cliff and separated from the group. He is then chased by wolves and befriends one that is injured, creating the first human/canine bond and forever changing the world (hence the title Alpha).

To my eye, what's shown in the trailer is unexciting. The actors look like A-listers who need a bath, and the scenery looks more like the sterile CGI landscape of 300 and The Phantom Menace than the real natural world shown in films like The Black Robe.

I give the trailer a score of three bored yawns (out of five, not ten).

Graham

8/8/2017 06:25:23 pm

Is that what 'Alpha' is about, when I saw the trailers, I had no idea it was connected with that project. Still it will be interesting to see what Hollywood does with Afrocentrist narritives when they get around to them.

Peter Kirchmeir

8/8/2017 06:58:49 pm

the buffalo sequences are interesting, but the tailer is too shurt to give much for discussion on this topic. My imprssion is that the sequences are bettereplained at HEAD_SMASHED_IN In Alberta.

Andy White

8/9/2017 11:35:10 am

I don't see any direct clues in the trailer about the location of the narrative, so I would presume it's supposed to be Europe rather than North America. Bison, saber-toothed cats, and wolves were present in both places. I guess we'll have to wait for another trailer or for the movie itself.

Ryuthrowsstuff

8/12/2017 08:56:03 pm

I remember seeing this trailer a bit ago and thinking "well that looks like crap I wonder what's up with that Solutrean thing"

No clue they were the same project.

Based on what's in the trailer I don't see a problem with base idea. Young person survives the wild with adorable dog is a classic story line. And lots of good and interesting stuff has been done with it. Though lots of bland and bad too. Setting it in prehistory is a decent idea (that's also been done)

But what were seeing in this trailer suffers from serious lack of imagination. I see little understanding or interest in actual material culture of the time. The creatures and backgrounds are like you said 300 style cgi exaggerations. And there seems to be nothing to elevate a pretty basic, archetypal story.

Just looks bland. This sort of bland tends to be down to lack of a good director. It's just going to be that cave man movie where the mud covered guy invented dogs.

jaap link

8/19/2017 01:40:15 pm

The Solutreans look like Caucasians, some of them brought up by very caring mothers ... The bison hunt looks plain silly: this is not a responsible way to get food! No one in his right mind is going to confront a bison stampede head-on. Also I missed the spear-thrower (atlas: my fault probably, I didn't care to watch more than once). The story may still be nice, though. In a Disney sort-of way. A good man and his dog is always nice.
What star formations they might have looked up towards we have no clue, there's no hint of that before the Magdalenian (when it might have been Taurus: birth, fertility. But even that is a long shot). Maybe the Wagon is not a bad guess, as it would have helped navigation, badly needed in crossing the Atlantic in curraghs ...
Mind you, I do not hold the existence of a maritime culture on both sides of the Atlantic as at all impossible. True, the Inuit that canooed to Scotland had dehydrated to the death, but Inuit landings in the Baltic have been recorded (Latin sources, I forget which). The Anzick-child doesn't tell me much beyond the value attached to the grave goods, if that: the excavation was a complete muddle - no blame - but multi interpretational.
Human presence in the Americas way before the Clovis-horizon has now been firmly established, based on both North and South-American finds. Possibly even for our 'primitive' cousins: America was wide open for those who lived in Northern China. So why not? Lack of evidence, that's why not! But what if no one looks for evidence?
The Ancick-child's forebears were already in Beringia/Yukon by 25 kya BE. North of the icesheet. But south of that God knows how many others have been given a sky-burial ...

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Is "The Solutrean" Really Just About a Boy and His Dog?

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