The Salt of the Earth

Wim Wenders being Wim Wenders, he has nothing left to prove about movie making. So most of this documentary is simply made by the pictures of Sebastião Salgado, and by close-ups of his face: he is looking at the images (but through the screen at the same time), while telling and explaining to the audience the genesis and the reasons of his work. It is very simple, yes, but at the same time it's extremely powerful. So powerful that, after a while, I was under the impression that those still b/w images were alive: crowds in the mass scenes seemed to move, people in portraits looked like they were going to turn their heads, and talk.

This movie should be shown in schools. The work of Salgado has testified some of the major (but lesser known) disasters of recent world history, none of which came within ear of the western world - much more interested in the brilliant lives of the fashion victims than in the tragic fate of the casualties of famines and wars.

Nietzsche famously once wrote: "When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you". Salgado had the guts to stare to the abyss, without blinking - but clicking. He did it to give to others the opportunity to know, and possibly to better understand the meaning of the term "humanity". Some of Sebastião Salgado images are horrible, but it is by far more horrible to think that without him those horrors would have happened with nobody to remember about them. His work creates grounds for memory, and memory grows some chances for hope, and hope give us and some reason to believe in a better future for our troubled planet.