In this blog post, I will focus on Wim Wenders’ ‘Genesis: Salt of the Earth’ to explore why I chose this film and examine its formal and narrative characteristics.
Reasons for Selection
First, when choosing a documentary, I considered what kind of subject matter would allow me to analyze it with genuine enjoyment rather than feeling burdened. That subject was “nature.” Perhaps because I was born and raised in Gangwon Province, I often find myself awestruck by the grandeur of nature. While searching for films centered on nature, I happened upon Wim Wenders’ ‘Genesis: Salt of the Earth’.
The black-and-white photographs unfolding at a leisurely pace, the soft narration, and the film’s portrayal of Sebastião Salgado’s life story and his final achievements—all of these were enough to capture my interest. That’s how I came to watch this film and witness Sebastião Salgado’s life story, as well as the brilliant and ugly aspects of the world he captured. As his photographs appeared one by one, I felt more than just a deep emotional resonance; I even began to feel a sense of disgust at the sheer ugliness of the world.
And it wasn’t just his works—the path he’d walked as a photographer, his achievements—that seemed to set the coordinates of my own life as someone involved in the arts. Encountering such a magnificent work was a sacred shock to me, having never seen a documentary before. It even made me want to make a documentary film myself. It was so beautiful to see that even without flashy cinematography, characters, or editing, black-and-white photographs and narration alone could strike a chord with the audience. This is why I chose this film.
Strengths
It presents an unembellished view of the world. Starting in 1973, he began capturing the world in earnest through his camera. In the early stages of the project, he sought to capture the goodness and unique beauty of the people living in the world. However, he did not limit himself to capturing only the world’s beauty.
We see the film capture, one after another, tragic images that document the history of humanity’s madness in war—where hatred begets hatred and everyone becomes a perpetrator of violence—such as the harrowing scenes of Rwandan refugees driven into the Congo region and the sight of a bus riddled with gunfire during the Yugoslavian civil war in the mid-1990s. Salgado’s calm yet sorrowful voice and expression, as he describes “us humans as vicious and terrible beasts,” leave a heavy and profound resonance in the viewer’s heart. And he presents this in a straightforward manner, without exaggeration or understatement.
Reviews from renowned media outlets worldwide—describing it as “a wondrous reflection on the world through the eyes of a great artist,” “a masterpiece that offers enlightenment and hope,” and “the greatest film in history about photographic art”—attest to the film’s artistic achievement and the power of Salgado’s photography, which embodies a spirit of respect and compassion for humanity and nature. It can be said that the film has fulfilled the ultimate purpose of a photographer: to reveal the light and shadows of the world.
Another strength is that it presents the unadorned face of the world without further embellishment. Director Wim Wenders decided to direct ‘Genesis’ based on Salgado’s journey after seeing the photograph of ‘The Blind Tuareg Woman’. In other words, this would have meant reinterpreting and rearranging Salgado’s journey and his works, but Wenders did not do this. He simply respected the light and shadows of the world that Salgado sought to convey and created a connection between them.
Through this work, it can be said that he delivered a deeply moving message of profound humanism and healing, along with an artistic experience that is more impactful than any previous work.
Logline
The salt of the earth is humanity—both ugly and beautiful. Yet this, too, is part of nature and part of the world.
Analysis: Narrative Aspects
The film begins with Salgado’s photographs and Wim Wenders explaining why he wanted to film him. It then primarily focuses on Salgado’s life story, his numerous projects, and finally, the story of his family. The film unfolds through Salgado’s photographs, which represent the very image of the world he sought to capture as a photographer.
Director Wim Wenders appears to have aimed to portray Salgado’s world as it is, based on facts. It seems his only effort was to present Salgado’s life story to the audience in a more cohesive manner.
The Beauty of the World
His early projects involved traveling around Brazil to observe the lives and religions of various communities. In other words, as a photographer, he sought to reveal the world through the human form. He found beauty in every individual’s appearance and every single one of their actions. His narration, which explains the photographs, and the anecdotes he recalls for each image speak of a bygone era of beauty.
Nature and Humanity
The second aspect of the world he seeks to capture is nature itself. More specifically, it depicts the human suffering caused by natural disasters. While this too is a subject that cannot be neatly divided into binary categories, it can be described as a narrative where humanity is encompassed within the broader scope of natural disasters.
Moving beyond the damage caused by natural disasters, his next project focuses on the human sacrifices resulting from division and politics—sacrifices that have claimed more lives than natural disasters themselves. To give a specific example, one can see this in the “Workers” project, which depicts the burning oil fields of Kuwait. Looking at that scene in a photograph sent chills down my spine. If hell exists, it must surely look like that.
As he proceeded with his projects, he increasingly felt the ugliness of the world rather than its splendor.
The Ugliness of the World
And through his final project, “Exodus,” he feels frustrated, as if betrayed by the beauty he once believed existed in the world. This is because he has witnessed the deaths of countless people. “There can be no salvation for the human race.” This line gives us a clearer glimpse into his state of mind. Salgado says that after completing this final project, he began to feel a sense of disillusionment as a photographer.
This raises many thoughts. From a filmmaker’s perspective, while we address numerous social issues and problems, is it truly the right thing to do to capture those issues and show them to a wide audience in order to spark public interest? I wonder if we could have brought about greater change by investing the time and money spent on each and every shot—taken to raise awareness—directly into those very causes.
Ultimately, Salgado, feeling this sense of disillusionment, overcomes and triumphs over his doubts as an artist through a tree-planting project, moving beyond mere questioning to direct participation. I can’t help but wonder if there is anyone else who could do something like that, and if there is a director capable of simply telling Salgado’s fascinating life story exactly as it is. If Wim Wenders had turned Salgado’s life story into a feature film filled with elaborate direction, I would not have felt the thoughts and emotions I am experiencing now through this documentary.
Analysis: Formal Aspects
The film unfolds through black-and-white photographs, a soundtrack tailored to them, Salgado’s narration accompanying the interviews and images, Wim Wenders’ narration observing Salgado, and finally, Juliano’s narration as he speaks about his father. Broadly speaking, the film progresses through photographs and narration.
However, it is clear that it strikes a chord with the audience with a power greater than that of any flashy editing or cinematography found in a feature film. The greatest strength of this film is that it captures the greatest power of a documentary: “truth.” While this is a fundamental quality of documentaries, the reason this authenticity resonated so deeply with me is that the film served Salgado’s life story as the vessel, and the truths revealed by his photographs as the food within it.
Photography, by its very nature, captures things exactly as they are, and this further elevates the essence of the documentary. While one might argue that the composition of Salgado’s photographs reflects his subjective perspective, I believe they also capture his subject without the slightest embellishment.
In this way, he presents his projects in chronological order, grouping them under a single overarching theme to continuously document the evolution of his own perspective on the world. Furthermore, by occasionally incorporating archival footage, he captures the factuality of history—devoid of his own subjectivity—as he has witnessed it, thereby further strengthening the power of the documentary.
When a photograph is displayed, Salgado’s narration describes the circumstances in which it was taken; while this conveys a sense of factuality, his emotional tone and dialogue sometimes suggest that his subjectivity is present to some extent. However, if we consider that the essence of a documentary lies in creatively approaching “facts” to reconstruct reality in order to reach an inner truth, then his subjective remarks can be viewed as part of that reconstruction.
Sequence Analysis
Childhood
Through an interview with Salgado’s father, the film explores what led Salgado to study economics and his experiences with Lélia, which inspired him to take up photography.
Human
“Other Americas” (1977–1984) is a project that traveled to numerous communities across Brazil to capture the people living there. By observing their behaviors and documenting their religions and customs through the camera, it can be described as a project that captures the beauty of people in their true, unadorned state.
Family
He talks about his wife and son. He also discusses the relationship between his father and his son, Juliano, and explains how he came to follow in his father’s footsteps as a photographer. Before moving on to natural disasters, he shows images of the arid land captured by his father.
Natural Disasters
He captured the Sahel (the Koptun region, Ethiopia, Mali) and the many people who, unprotected by nature or even God, were dying by the minute. Salgado felt the world he once thought was beautiful gradually deteriorating.
Human Ugliness
Workers (1986–1991): Soviet steelworkers, factory workers in Kolkata, tea leaf workers in Rwanda, and firefighters trying to extinguish burning oil wells in Kuwait after the Gulf War, among others. He says the world is no longer beautiful. These places evoke images of hell. The world seems to consist not of light and shadow, but only of shadow.
Revulsion
‘Exodus’ (1993–1999) focuses on Rwanda and addresses the universal phenomenon of migration and the plight of refugees, including those from Yugoslavia. “While working on ‘Exodus,’ I witnessed so much extreme suffering, hatred, and violence that by the time I finished, I was completely mentally shattered.” He loses his way, unsure of what to do next as a photographer.
The Creation of Beauty
Instituto Terra: Inspired by his wife’s words, “Sebastião, let’s plant trees again,” he launched a 10-year tree-planting project. In just a decade, he transformed that nearly barren wasteland into a landscape filled with over 2.5 million trees, leading to its designation as a Brazilian national park.
A Reimagining of Beauty
The ‘Genesis Project’ (launched in 2004) is a project that captures the wonders of the Earth. It portrays humanity and nature in their pristine, unspoiled state.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, the story unfolds based on the project, but it also connects one project to another by highlighting the links between his family and his work. If this documentary had focused solely on his project, it wouldn’t have resonated deeply with me. If someone who captures the world in black and white hadn’t shown the darkness and light within his family, I wouldn’t have been convinced or accepted it.
Honestly, I’m not sure what I was thinking while analyzing this film. Still, if I had to guess, I’d say the strongest feeling was that I wanted to make a film like this. I’ve mentioned before that I’m interested in nature as a subject, but watching this film made me realize that my interest was merely superficial. I came to understand that if one truly cares about the world, nature, and humanity, one must dedicate one’s life—like Sal Gadue—to observing and capturing them.
Ultimately, through this writing, I feel like I’ve found, at least to some extent, the direction I need to take. Furthermore, I’ve developed a greater interest in the documentary genre. It’s not that I simply became interested in documentaries just because I watched one; rather, I’ve come to realize that my constant worries about what and how to capture in my films—which characters, events, and conflicts to present to the audience—weren’t entirely pointless after all, now that I’ve come to understand the documentary genre.
I realized that every person in the world is a character, and that if you look at the world and nature as they are, you’ll find events unfolding, and within those events, countless conflicts. As I prepare this 10-minute film, I want to shoot it as a documentary. I think I’m beginning to understand, at least a little, why we’re told to write what we truly love—not just as an assignment. Although the quality isn’t perfect, I feel somewhat proud because it has helped me grow as a filmmaker.
