Prehistoric tale set in Stone Age about cavemen plenty of drama , adventures , thrilling events and speaking a special language and particular primitive movements . At a time in prehistory when Neanderthals shared the Earth with early Homo Sapiens , a band of cave-dwellers travels through uncharted landscapes towards an unknown territory , searching for caves to shelter themselves . During their quest , they encounter and battle various animals as buffalo , lion , wolves and tribesmen in order to survive . Iza (Pamela Reed), Medicine woman of the "Clan of the Cave Bear" meets little Ayla from the "other"'s clan ; the little girl loses her parents , Ayla is taken in by after her own parents are disappeared , tradition would have the clan kill Ayla immediately , but the Medicine women insists on keeping her . Iza as a primitive gamine adopts blond and blue-eyed Ayla , the lost child of the "Others" . As it results out later , she's a bright girl , but has a hard time to keep her place in a clan with different habits . As the scrawny cavegirl named Ayla (a gorgeous primitive babe played by Daryl Hannah) matures into a young woman of spirit and courage , being helped by Creg (James Remar) , she must fight for survival against the jealous bigotry of Broud (Thomas G Waites) , who will one day be clan chief .
This interesting film about primitive humans contains drama , emotions , fights and is pretty entertaining . Ponderous and sometimes slow-moving , the picture failed at box office , however , nowadays being better considered . Based on Jean M. Auel's popular novel with screenplay by prestigious John Sayles , there is minimal narration ; subtitles translate the Neanderthal gestures and primitive spoken language . A planned back-to-back sequel never made it into production . Emotive musical score by Alan Silvestri , though composed by synthesizer . Colorful and brilliant cinematography by Jan De Bont , subsequently become filmmaker . The motion picture was well realized by Michael Chapman . Chapman is deemed one of the best cameraman of cinema , he photographed a lot of successes such as ¨Evolution¨ , ¨Primal fear¨, ¨The fugitive¨, ¨Rising sun¨, ¨Ghostbusters II¨, ¨Shoot to kill¨ and masterpieces for Martin Scorsese as ¨Raging Bull¨, ¨Last Walz¨, Taxi driver¨ . He occasionally directed some films as ¨The viking sagas¨, ¨All the right moves¨ and this ¨The clan of bear cave¨.
Other films dealing with cavemen are the following : ¨One million B.C. ¨(1940) by Hal Roach with Victor Mature and Carole Landis ; ¨One million years B.C.¨ by Don Chaffey with Rachel Welch and John Richardson ; ¨!0.000 B.C.¨ by Roland Emmerich with Steven Strait and Camilla Belle ; and the best is ¨Quest of fire¨ by Jean Jacques Annaud with Everett McGill and Ron Perlman .
