AO - The Last Neanderthal - DVD

Film: Embark on a journey into the past. Because the story of the DVD premiere "AO - The Last Neanderthal" takes place about 30,000 years ago. The tribe of AO (Simon Paul Sutton) is attacked and brutally slaughtered. Only AO survives and, wracked by rage and despair, makes his way back to his ancient homeland in southern Europe. The perilous journey brings the Neanderthal together with a heavily pregnant human girl, Aki (Aruna Shields), whom he rescues from a horde of cannibals, only to be driven away by her and her tribe. But Aki comes to her senses and joins AO, who lovingly cares for her and her baby. A love develops that is tested time and time again on their journey together.

There are two things that viewers of "AO - The Last Neanderthal" will have to come to terms with in order to fully enjoy the film. For one thing, there's AO's makeup, which takes a bit of getting used to and always seems a bit too artificial despite the obvious effort to be authentic. On the other hand, the actual dialogues are delivered in languages that were developed especially for the movie, but are not understandable for the viewer, only German and French off-screen comments give an insight into AO's and Aki's world of thoughts. This brings the film sometimes to the border of kitsch and even beyond. So, despite the good intentions of the makers, you should by no means expect an authentic history lesson like "Am Anfang war das Feuer" by Jean-Jaques Annaud.

Whoever can come to terms with these two aspects of the production will be rewarded with a neatly crafted production and, above all, wonderful images that make this adventure film well worth watching, despite a few moments that are laid on too thick. Especially the suspense moments of the story are engagingly staged and can be largely convincing. The romance between AO and Aki, on the other hand, balances too often on the border of kitsch to be really touching. But despite the obvious flaws in the dramaturgy, the film was able to thrill French cinema audiences, appropriately rewarding the great effort the makers put into transporting the viewer back to the time of the Neanderthals.

So if you like films like Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto", "10,000 B.C." by Roland Emmerich, or to some extent Kevin Costner's "Dancing with Wolves", shouldn't miss this beautifully filmed prehistoric adventure based on the novel "Ao, L`homme ancien" by Marc Klapczynski. Dramaturgically, there may be some flaws, but the visuals alone and the obvious efforts at authenticity make this film absolutely worth seeing!

Just a quick note: the running time of the film is listed on the DVD cover as 87 minutes. In fact, however, the film only runs 80 minutes.

Image + Sound:The image has a fairly high level of sharpness, revealing few real weaknesses even in detail, and only dips in quality in darker sequences. Colours are well matched, allowing the wonderful landscape shots to stand out well. The sound is atmospheric, but overall rather subdued and dominated by the music and narrator voices. Good!

Extras: In addition to some trailers from the program of the provider, the interested viewer is still offered a good Making of (about 25 min.), which offers an entertaining and pleasantly commercial-free look behind the scenes. Recommended!

Conclusion: "AO - The Last Neanderthal" is an adventure film with some dramaturgical weaknesses, but visually more than convincing. The DVD is technically well realized, the making of included in the bonus package also provides a worth seeing insight into the making of this ambitious project. Recommendable

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp