The Salt of the Earth (2014) (English, French & Portuguese Language)

Review

110min

Genre:      Documentary

Directors:  Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

Cast:        Sebastião Salgado, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado…and more

Writers:    Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and David Rosier

Powerful documentary chronicling the life and work of renown Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado as he recounts 40 years of travelling the globe and capturing the human condition and its often dark aspects, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Wim Wenders (Buena Vista Social Club, Pina) and Salgado’s son Juliano Riberio Salgado.

Wenders begins the film explaining the Greek origins of the word photography as “drawing with light” and establishing that people are “the salt of the earth”, photojournalist Sebastião Salgado is therefore the artist who draws the light of humanity, sometimes from the darkest places imaginable… and illuminates the majesty of the planet we’ve made our own, for better or worse.

It’s hard to believe that what is essentially a 2 hour narrated slideshow cut with limited modern video could be so compelling, but like all great documentarians, Wenders knows when to stay out of the way and let the subject and in this case the pictures tell the story, and believe us they are worth considerably more than a thousand words.

‘The Salt of the Earth’ spans Salgado’s intertwined personal & professional life following his 40 years of witnessing some of the most harrowing and monumental events around the world, from living with the indigenous people of the Andes to capturing the horrors of the Ethiopian famine in the mid 1980’s, capturing the extinguishing of the blazing Kuwaiti oil fields at the end of the 1st Gulf war to bearing witness to the Rwandan genocide of the mid 1990’s.

It’s quite remarkable how black & white photos set to a solid score can often be more evocative than moving pictures, many of the images of death in the film are hard to take as they linger to great effect, but like the great Akira Kurosawa once said “being an artist means not having to avert one’s eyes” and Salgado certainly doesn’t, his interviews and narration give the images a political and emotional context which also enhances the experience as a whole.

Like he did for music with ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ and dance with ‘Pina’, Wenders produces a tribute to the artistry of photography and shines a light on the remarkable life on one artist in particular, Salgado comes off like a man who sees what’s in front of his lens as more than a subject and takes a piece of everything he captures with him, although there is some light at the end of this tunnel Salgado does not offer a solution to the darkest parts of the human condition, but then again who can?

The Bottom Line…

Painfully compelling and impossible to forget, ‘The Salt of the Earth’ is often hard to watch but you can’t quite avert your eyes, as you shouldn’t, one of the more powerful documentaries in recent memory and perhaps the most vivid lesson in modern history you’re likely to have.

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