The Salt of the Earth (2014)
During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.
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Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.
Absolutely the worst movie.
It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
This film is a photographic and anthropological insight into human nature. It tells us many stories. For example, that one in which people run instead of walk. Or that in which people live above the clouds or that about people who can play a musical instrument and does not meet the need to work a day. The landscapes are changed one after another - deserts, glaciers, tropics.The tape has a deeper part - we find communities that need to use the services of consultants for the use of second-hand coffins. Those who are fleeing genocide, hunger, thirst and lack of natural living conditions. For a moment we touch the cruelty of humanity, which surprisingly, lives quite close to us - both in time and in space.The only thing that is constant in the film is the magical view of life that the photographer Sebastião Salgado has. The story goes retrospectively in the direction opposite of Darwinian evolution in terms of emotional and intellectual development. However, the movie remains a "love letter" from Salgado to mankind and nature, which gives us at the end the needed dose of positivism with which to start acting on things that depend on us!My Blog: http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.bg/
Werner Herzog knows how to make a human story. Be it a feature film or like in this case a documentary. I've seen documentaries where the filmmakers tried hard but failed to get the essence of the subject they tried to portray. This does not happen here. Obviously the subject matter itself is not always an easy one to stomach.But if you can and you're genuinely interested in the work of the photographer (even if you didn't really know much about him, like myself, prior to watching this movie), this will be more than an interesting watch for you. I avoid saying entertaining, because as stated, it is a tough watch at times. The (mostly) black and white nature of it all is enhancing the dreadful feeling, but also elevates it into another class.
"We are a ferocious animal. We humans are terrible animals. Our history is a history of wars. It's an endless story, a tale of madness." – Sebastião SalgadoDirected by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado this documentary goes through the life of the photographer Sebastião Salgado, from its childhood times in Minas Gerais until his current role as an activist and founder of Instituto Terra. Not following the typical poetic and metaphorical style, and sometimes pretentious, that characterizes Wim so much, this documentary follows a simple line, however it's not a light viewing. In fact, it's hard, graphic and even chocking in some parts. Divided between the outside interpretations of Wim and Juliano, they reckon their perspectives were complemented with each other's, Juliano as son of Sebastião and Wim as the outside look, admirer of Salgado's work. But it's when Sebastião analyzes its photographs, the highlight of the film, that we realize who he really is and what he testified, transporting us into an incredible journey of anger, despair and hope.
" . . . we humans are terrible animals," coffee table photo book producer Sebastiao Salgado says near the end of THE SALT OF THE EARTH. "Everyone should see (my) images to understand how terrible the human species is. No one deserves to live," he concludes. Heisenberg's Uncertainy Theory says that we cannot observe something without changing it. SALT documents how Salgado was Johnny-on-the-spot for torture in his native Brazil, the Ethiopian Mass Starvation of the 1980s, the genocide in Bosnia, the Rwandan massacres, the Burning of Kuwait, and most of the other Big Time Disasters of his lifetime. If I were in his shoes, I'd be wondering, "Is it me?" Perhaps Salgado is living a reverse Heisenberg, proving that nothing is observed without changing the viewer. If so, SALT could be detrimental to YOUR mental health--that is, unless you can take it with the proverbial grain of NaCl.