X
- 2017
- Alameda Entertainment
- 1 h 38 m
- 2017
- Alameda Entertainment
- 1 h 38 m
Summary The leader of a small scientific delegation is deliberately stranded with two blind boys in an area of gigantic salt flats.
Written By: Tom Bissell
- 2017
- Alameda Entertainment
- 1 h 38 m
- 2017
- Alameda Entertainment
- 1 h 38 m
Salt and Fire
44
3.9
Where to Watch
Summary The leader of a small scientific delegation is deliberately stranded with two blind boys in an area of gigantic salt flats.
Written By: Tom Bissell
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
44
13% Positive
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
75% Mixed
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
13% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
44
13% Positive
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
75% Mixed
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
13% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Audiences unfamiliar with Herzog will be largely baffled by this eccentric and meandering eco-drama, but aficionados will find much to enjoy here.
Perhaps the best that can be said of Salt and Fire is that its flaws are wholly Herzog’s. Those flaws are deep. But so is the man responsible for them.
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 8 User Ratings
3.9
13% Positive
1 Rating
1 Rating
50% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
38% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 8 User Ratings
3.9
13% Positive
1 Rating
1 Rating
50% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
38% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
This film makes you question whether the director is really Herzog, since I personally find this one as the weakest film of his filmography; could it be because of his old age (75, when the movie was shot)?
The film suggests that the destruction caused by humans in nature cannot simply be explained by so-called 'professional' teams with graphics and analyzes on paper / computer. He argues that these "mechanical" reports prepared are lacking in spirit and therefore doomed to failure. This idea is the basis of the "desert island" syndrome, which we do not understand until the end of the movie. This part is really good.
On the other hand, the script, loose dialougea, poor acting; it is unfortunately not more than a waste of time.
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This most defiantly rule-resistant of filmmakers certainly hasn’t lost his capacity to surprise. Salt and Fire’s punchline, however, only enhances the sense of a shaggy-dog tale dashed off on the back of a postcard — it’s the scenery on the other side that holds our attention.
Salt and Fire is a doodle, suggesting an assemblage of ecological riffs and fantasias that Werner Herzog may have entertained while making Into the Inferno.
In Salt and Fire, a bad movie but an intriguing vacation slideshow, Michael Shannon and Veronica Ferres play “characters” (unconvincing, undimensional) and speak “dialogue” (expository, flat).
Described by Werner Herzog as “a daydream that doesn’t follow the rules of cinema,” Salt and Fire may be rule-breaking, but the result is one of the director’s least appealing adventures.
Salt and Fire is fundamentally bad, in its filmmaking and expressiveness, whether there is any meaning to a parrot quoting Nostradamus or not.
(Mauro Lanari)
"Herzog has reached its nadir." Perhaps he has done even worse, meanwhile here he is struggling between a 1st part with a thriller that is a MacGuffin and a 2nd part with aphoristic and silly philosophemes flanked by tasteless images of a salt lake. Unrecognizable.
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Oof.
As I always say when I give films such a bad rating/review (though, tbf, only the ninth time I've rated 1/10...), it is nothing personal and I respect everyone who worked on this film and, of course, understand it isn't easy to make films. I never enjoy slating one, but this... deary me.
I'm not sure where to begin. The dialogue. The dialogue! I genuinely do not believe I've seen a movie with such truly awful dialogue, the amount of times I was holding my head out of cringe was immeasurable. You just know the writer, presumably one Werner Herzog, thought he was prime William Shakespeare when he put it all together. It's not just terrible in itself, it also simply isn't written for the actors - none of it sounds natural out of them whatsoever.
Talking of the actors, they merit some iffiness too. Listen, they are severely hampered by those behind the scenes but more was needed - especially from Michael Shannon, who I am a big fan of but his performance is... questionable, at best. Again, the ill-fitting dialogue did not help. Elsewhere, Veronica Ferres tries and is likeable but... yeah, not good. At least the Arancibia kids add some charm to things.
Those children are put into the film around the middle and somehow (nothing bad on them, just their characters) stay until the very end. Those scenes with them, and Ferres' Laura, are sweet in isolation (pardon the pun), but wow do they feel entirely out of place and disconnected (pardon the p...) to everything that proceeds - to the point that the sweetness drains away.
1/10 always feels harsh to me, yet this is very much deserving of that rating in my opinion. Dire stuff, even at just around 90 minutes. The kids and the neat locations are all I've got by way of positives.
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Production Company
Skellig Rock,
Construction Film,
Benaroya Pictures,
Canana Films,
International Film Trust (IFT),
The Fyzz Facility,
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF),
La Bête Lumineuse,
Arte France Cinéma,
ARTE,
FilmFernsehFonds Bayern
Release Date Apr 7, 2017
Duration 1 h 38 m
Genres
Awards
German Film Critics Association Awards
• 2 Nominations
Shanghai International Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
