Movie deserves a 6 at least. Story is based on a complete distortion of the actual truth. Altamira caves were discovered by a shepherd/hunter. The film story is a fabrication of the rich Statuola family who sponsored the film, in order to falsely credit and "honor" their ancestor. Poor shepherd into oblivion, rich family takes the credit. So 1/10 from me, for hiding the truth and lying.

Marcelino de Sautuola (Antonio Banderas) was a Spanish jurist and amateur archaeologist who owned the land where the Altamira cave was found . As his daughter Maria (as little girl : Allegra Allen and grown-up : Irene Escolar) , nine years old at the time, incidentally noticed that the ceiling was covered by images of bisons . Sautuola then started exploring the caves in 1875. He did not become aware of the paintings, however, until 1879, when Sautuola, having seen similar images engraved on Paleolithic objects displayed at the World Exposition in Paris the year before, rightly assumed that the paintings might also date from the Stone Age. Attempting to expose their discovery to the academic world for that they study the paintings , but he failed . Looking for the truth, Sautuola was the rest of his life fighting to prove that those paintings were real, attempting to restore his innocence from the accusations of falsehood launched against him by scientists , historians , geographers and priests (Rupert Everett) . As Marcelino , his wife Conchita (Golshifteh Farahani) and daugther (later she married into the Botín family of Cantabrian bourgeoisie, the current owners of Banco Santander are Sautuola's descendants) suffering distresses and unfortunes trying to demonstrate the reality of the fabulous paintings .The Altamira cave, now famous for its unique collection of prehistoric art, was well known to local people, but had not been given much attention until in 1868, when it was "discovered" . Biography about existence and happenings of the man who realized one of the most important discoveries of the 19th : Altamira , Pateolithic paintings . As Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola y de la Pedrueca, in 1868, accidentally discovered Paleolithic paintings with the help of a hunter named Modesto Cubillas inside Altamira's caves, located in Cantabria, north to Spain . The flick concerns about confrontation between science and religion ; and between rationalism and faith . As Sautuola was panned and accused the paintings were made for the own Sautuola, in a effort to get richness . Dealing with his thunderous life when crashed against the skepticism and discredit of all scientists , geographers , and religious people , who claimed that the caves were false . The picture displays an evocative and imaginative cinematography by José Luis Luis Alcaine who is deemed to be one of the best Spanish cameramen with a long and prestigious artistic career and Almodovar's ordinary cameraman , as he has photographed successes such as ¨Volver¨ , ¨The bad education¨ , ¨The skin I live in¨ , and ¨Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown¨ . He was first cinematographer to use fluorescent tube as "key" lightning in the 1970s . Jose Luis Alcaine thought a theory that the Frank Borzage movie A farewell to the arms (1932) after a story by Ernest Hemingway, was the main and total inspiration for Pablo Picasso in the creation of the "Guernica", one of the most important painting of the 20th century. He believes that several images of a sequence of 5 minutes long showing the exodus of countrymen and soldiers on an infernal rainy night was the inspiration of Pablo Picasso. Furthermore , a willingness almost perfect of the elements of each shot , every sequence , every space . Sensitive and rousing musical score by Mar Knopfler . The yarn was well directed by Hugh Hudson (Chariots of fire , Greystoke , I dreamed of Africa Irresistible, Revolution) The picture is based on historical events about the discoverer of the Altamira paintings , these are the followings : Marcelino thanks to his daughter Maria , and the hunter Modesto discoverd the notorious caves . He therefore engaged an archaeologist from the University of Madrid to help him in his further work. Professor Juan Vilanova y Piera supported Sautuola's assumptions, and they published their results in 1880, to much public acclaim. But the scientific society was reluctant to accept the presumed antiquity of the paintings . The French specialists, led by their guru Gabriel de Mortillet, were particularly adamant in rejecting the hypothesis of Sautuola and Piera and their findings were loudly ridiculed at the 1880 Prehistorical Congress in Lisbon. Due to the supreme artistic quality, and the exceptional state of conservation of the paintings, Sautuola was even accused of forgery. A fellow countryman maintained that the paintings had been produced by a contemporary artist, on Sautuola's orders.It was not until 1902, when several other findings of prehistoric paintings had served to render the hypothesis of the extreme antiquity of the Altamira-paintings less shocking (and forgery less likely), that the scientific society retracted their opposition to the Spaniards. That year, the towering French archaeologist Émile Cartailhac, who had been one of the leading critics, emphatically admitted his mistake in the famous article, "Mea culpa d'un sceptique", published in the journal L'Anthropologie.Sautuola had died 14 years earlier, and did not live to enjoy the restitution of his honour or the later scientific confirmation of his premonitions. Modern dating techniques have since confirmed that the paintings of the Altamira cave were created over extended periods between 11,000 and 19,000 years ago. For the study of Paleolithic art Sautuola's discoveries must now be considered pivotal.

This is the tale of Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola (Antonio Banderas) and his nine year old daughter Maria (Allegra Allen) who discovered the prehistoric paintings in "The Caves of Altamira". The discovery was initially proclaimed as monumental, but was then rejected by his peers as a forgery. The story opens with Maria as an adult and ends with her as adult when her humiliated father was publicly exonerated in "Mea culpa d'un sceptique" in 1902. It shows the church aggressively opposing any aspect of evolution and attempting to use the overly religious wife against her husband.It's Antonio Banderas who always does an excellent job playing a Spaniard. The acting was good, but the drama, like real life was lacking at times. We see the church forcing the daughter to stand in the corner for comparing man's wrist bones to bats etc. We see confrontation with the church in debates and Sautuola in his own world. There are a few father-daughter scenes that could have been more touching and they needed to play the Steely Dan song during the credits.I am a sucker for good history and biopic. Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.On a side note astronomer Frank Edge claims the works are depictions of their view of the stars/constellations. From Art History Worlds: "Altamira Cave, Spain, 15,500 years ago: star pictures in a cave painting. Edge found another famous cave at the southern edge of Magdalenian territory, with a second mural that he correlated to the stars. While the Lascaux painting depicts just those constellations along the ecliptic, Altamira's is more ambitious in scope, with the cave wall organized to represent the entire visible night sky. Selected stars are depicted among all that would have appeared through the spring nights, from sunset to sunrise, from the horizon all the way up to the pole. Those closest to the Pole, the circumpolar stars that never set, are nicely arranged across the top of the mural. At the bottom are Scorpius, Leo and Taurus, the stars then seen along the horizon. The painting is dated at 13,500 B.C."

Pablo makes a fair point . But it was the family who owned the property that tried in vane to share this great discovery with the world and condemned as a fraud. As with anything discovery is not the be all and end all. A far more significant point to this story is about is the efforts to share this magnificent artifact with the world in the face of complete skepticism. Yes a shepherd / hunter found it but the journey is in getting people to understand the value in the history of mankind amid claims of fraud. This is an effort to view the far bigger picture the efforts to learn human history and just how relevant this find was relating to preserving a chapter in early mankind's history. the effort to share with the world is the story .pablo is looking through a more political lens. But at the time it seems few other than a determined landowner cared about the historical value . His efforts saved these magnificent artifacts bring attention to the story of mankind's history