Galo Semblantes’ documentary is a sober overview of a subject often treated—not without some justification—as a crackpot theory: namely the archaeological significance of the so-called Cueva de los Tayos (Cave of the Oilbird) located in Ecuador on the eastern slope of the Andes, in territory inhabited by the indigenous Shuar people.
The catalyst was Janos Juan Móricz, a Hungarian émigré who claimed to have been introduced to the cave by a native and argued that it was a treasure-trove of artifacts, including a huge metal library, that testified to the existence of an ancient advanced civilization related to the Magyars of Eastern Europe.
Móricz interested Mormon elders in his ideas and mounted an expedition to the site in 1969, which resulted in little evidence of his claims but caught the attention of Erich von Däniken, the author who, in Chariots of the Gods (1968), had postulated the notion of ancient extraterrestrials that inspired the evolution of primitive humankind. He cited Móricz’s argument as confirmation of his own thesis in The Gold of the Gods (1973), though Móricz denied von Däniken had ever visited the cave.
All of this, in turn, fascinated Scottish engineer Stanley Hall, who collaborated with Móricz in mounting a more elaborate expedition in 1976, which even attracted support from astronaut Neil Armstrong. Nothing came of it, and it led to Móricz’s break with Hall, just as he previously distanced himself from the Mormon establishment and denounced von Däniken.
Semblantes includes much archival footage—film of the expeditions, along with excerpts from interviews with Móricz and von Däniken. He adds segments on other major figures in the construction of the legend of the cave—eccentric Catholic priest Carlo Crespi, who kept a “museum” of items supposedly taken from it in the nearby village of Cuenca, and Petronio Jaramillo, an ex-army officer who claimed that he had heard about the cave from a Shuar boy and actually saw its marvels as a teen.
There are also new interviews with Eileen Hall, Stanley’s daughter who has continued her father’s work, Gerardo Peña Matheus, a lawyer in Guayaquil who was part of Móricz’s 1969 team, and others, as well as re-enactments and animated graphics. Semblantes neither promotes the extravagant claims about the importance of the Tayos cave nor rabidly debunks them; he simply methodically outlines how a legend arose that continues to attract followers despite the lack of any serious evidence to support it. The result is a fascinating documentary about a pseudo-scientific oddity. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P.