And now for something a little more sobering for your summer, here’s
Wim Wenders with The Salt of the Earth, a stunning retrospective of
the life and career of the Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado,
who began his career shooting the working class all over the world,
then moved into war zones and the environment. A fairly
straightforward march through his life, Wenders—who directs with
Salgado’s son Juliano—uses the traditional structure to showcase the
work that’s breathtaking in ways good (a Galapagos tortoise) and
horrifying (genocide in Rwanda). Forty years of bearing witness to the
world at its most remote, most beautiful, most terrible and most
redeeming, Salgado is also a steady, gentle presence as he discusses
the various tragedies and how his work affected his family, a wife and
two boys. Though Leila is not on camera often, she is the guiding
light of Salgado’s life, organizing the photos that become his
world-renowned books, and if she’s got a problem with his absence,
this film doesn’t mention it. A fine, educational piece of documentary
here, and the most beautiful images you’ll see all season—with zero
computer enhancement.
This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2015.