Salt of the Earth (12A)
Directed by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
4/5

THEY say a picture paints a thousand words.

That’s certainly true of the black-and-white images of legendary Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, which speak volumes and leave one speechless.

This powerful documentary directed by Wim Wenders with Salgado’s son Juliano sheds fascinating new light on the life and profession of this great photojournalist and former economist who captured the atrocities of international conflicts, mass starvation, enforced exodus and genocide during the course of his 40-year-long career.

It also provides an invaluable insight into Salgado the family man and, from Juliano’s perspective, the absent father.

Wenders elicits a running commentary from Salgado on each of his iconic photographs and, as he speaks straight into the camera, it takes a while to realise that he is also scanning the same photos which are being projected on glass that we are seeing. His face appears to emerge from the pictures themselves — something of an unnerving and surreal experience.

The black-and-white images shot in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kuwait and Yugoslavia capture the worst horrors of humanity and social injustice. Exquisitely framed, they’re chilling to watch on the big screen and have a huge emotional impact.

Salgado has a knack of capturing his subjects’ resilience, their dignity and even their souls in these extraordinary photographs.

Yet covering the frenzied massacres in Rwanda in the 1990s broke his spirit and made him ill. He comments “we didn’t deserve to live” as he reveals that when he left the country he no longer believed in any salvation for the human race.

He then turned to nature and wildlife photography in the project Genesis and found his own salvation by embarking on a massive environmental restoration programme of his late grandfather’s desert farmland in Brazil with the help of his wife Leila.

A remarkable and unique film, with an extraordinarily uplifting ending.