Salgado's work explored natural environments and the humans who inhabit them. His black and white photographs illuminated how the environment and humans are exploited to maximize profit for the global economic market. The film follows Salgado as he began a career as an economist with his wife, Lélia, at his side. During a stint in Paris, Lélia bought a camera, and Salgado discovered his love of photography. Following the timeline of his life, the film uses his own photos and videos to illustrate Salgado's life and work beginning with his exile from Brazil and his subsequent transition from economist to artist and explorer. Salgado began working full-time as a photographer in 1973, first news photography then documentary style, with Lelia supporting him. The film follows him as he travels around South America, including the countries neighboring his native Brazil, spending time among and photographing native tribes like the Zo'é, living lives not much touched by the modern world. Co-directed by Salgado's son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, the film contains recollections from childhood of a father who was absent much of the time and the times he accompanied his father on trips to discover who Salgado was beyond his childhood conception. Next, Salgado traveled to the Sahel region of Africa, shown in unflinching and heartbreaking video and photographs. Salgado referred to the famine in Ethiopia as a problem of distribution, not just a natural disaster. He documented the largest ever refugee camps and the innumerable deaths that occurred there, from hunger, cholera, and cold. His work covering famine in Africa brought worldwide attention to the region and the underlying causes. After photographing the Yugoslavian war and Rwanda after the genocide and one year later, Salgado lost hope for humanity. Going back to his natal Minas Gerais, he founds Instituto Terra and re-forests his family land. Then he is inspired to photograph the wildlife. The film follows 40 years of Salgado's work from South America, to Africa, Europe, the Arctic, and back home to Brazil focusing on international conflicts, starvation and exodus, and natural landscapes in decline.
Reception
The Salt of the Earth received largely positive reviews from critics. According to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of critics have given the film a positive review with an average rating of 7.99/10, based on 90 reviews. The site's critics consensus states: "While the work it honors may pose thorny ethical questions that Salt of the Earth neglects to answer, it remains a shattering, thought-provoking testament to Sebastião Salgado's career." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
