Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Il sale della terra

For some years now, almost everyone feels like a photographer. They snap shots everywhere, probably even in the restroom after taking care of business, not to associate a series of images with a fond memory. What I find sometimes unbearable is that, fueled by avalanches of likes, supported by ultra-modern phones equipped with sharing intelligence, thanks to all of this, they don't stop. And now and then for social duty, you must endure those evenings where these acquaintances, even dear friends, show you hundreds of digital photos, almost no one develops them anymore, from their last trip with series of cut-off feet, crooked shots, backlit, out of focus like the delirium tremens of an alcoholic, misaligned or with subjects that do not spark the slightest interest. Three hundred, the number. In such moments I would rather watch 300, the film: that epic metal gay pride of Frank Miller instead. Halfway through the screening... BAM, the testicles tend to roll onto the floor; I always try to be ready to run in case there's a dog nearby.

"The Salt of the Earth" you can see at the cinema, but passing it off as a film, no, I can't. It belongs to the category of documentaries for a magnificent, very slow slideshow of superior black and white photographs alternated with explanations from the protagonist who with simple words tries to explain what's behind those clicks.

According to Sebastião Salgado, a hundred professional photographers in the same spot will never take a similar shot; the use of zoom, framing, the choice of light and shadow, color, are personal characteristics resulting from a unique growth path. The camera is just the tool through which a professional sees the world. When he began, almost as a joke, photographing he was already an adult; graduated in economics and commerce, with bright career prospects, he had the strength to throw it all away and follow instinct thanks to the support of his wife who encouraged him in the leap into the unknown.

This artist's photographs are black and white slashes that hurt. He knew the economic machinery of contemporary society and that's exactly where he went to stick his lens. The workers' conditions with a truthful, cynical, and very hard eye. Like a nomad, he constantly traveled the globe, jumping from one project to another. He returned to South America to document the hard and full life in the countryside. For thirty years and more he wanted to highlight the devastating effects of disparities between rich and poor countries. His most famous photograph might be that of an open-pit gold mine in Brazil: at least 50,000 people in an endless quagmire, like tiny ants on shaky, narrow ladders. A manifesto of our century. He repeatedly went to Africa where he witnessed the wars in Angola and Mozambique in the '70s, the drought of the Sahel, the famines, and the endless hunger of a dignified continent but deprived of hope. The tremendous genocide in Rwanda disturbed him deeply: almost a million deaths, many hacked to death, which in the West went unnoticed, as if the volume had been turned down to a minimum not to disturb too much.
Devastated by the rot of the human factor, by its increasingly disruptive effects, Salgado in the early 2000s realized he could no longer continue his work of social denunciation and with "Genesis" sought to detoxify himself and return to life with wonderful nature shots. There is still beauty where contemporary man, in his opinion the most dangerous animal on the globe, has not yet arrived to overwhelm, rob, ruin and exploit as is his nature.

There are many minutes that will make your stomach turn; repeatedly you will not be able to face the screen but from my point of view "The Salt of the Earth", directed by Wenders and Salgado's son, is a work of great depth. Should you be interested, the cinema viewing is highly recommended because the big screen enhances it infinitely better compared to a personal computer or a television.

Clicking, increasingly more than in the past, has become a daily, almost natural gesture, but taking a beautiful photograph. Well, that's another thing and much more complicated than one might think.