| My rating | IMDb's rating | Rotten Tomatoes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Critics | Public | Critics | Public | |
| 7/10 | 83/100 | 8,4/10 | 94% | 89% |
Growing up in Brazil, it is very usual to see pictures taken by Sebastião Salgado in our school textbooks. They are often used to illustrate the social disparity in the world and to report the terrible living conditions that affect a great number of people all around the world. And, during all those years in school, I never actually seen a picture of him, nor did I know his life story. So he probably could have walked past me and I would never have known that it was him.
Therefore, the idea of watching a documentary was really appealing, so I would finally learn about this man that is worldwide famous for his pictures. I was really surprised, then when the movie started with the voice over of a man describing a picture in French. And I thought “why is it in French? Is the guy who is speaking already him?”. After describing the first picture, it was clear that it was him and he looked very different than what I had expected!
We learn that he ran away from the military dictatorship in Brazil during the 1960s, so he and his wife moved to France (hence his perfect French; also, the film was co-produced in by France). He starts telling his life story and the places he visited while taking pictures.
The format of the documentary is a little exhausting, because they put him in a black room in front of his pictures and he starts to describe each one. Only a few times do we get to see him actually travelling. It’s impossible, however, not to pay attention when they freeze some of his most dramatic pictures on screen (especially photos of children dying in Africa).
I enjoyed getting to know more about his life and his family, but the way it was shown was not that appealing to me. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary, “The Salt of the Earth” is way less interesting than Sebastião Salgados’s story per se and his pictures.
