Salt and Fire

Plot

Three scientists (Dr. Laura Sommerfield, Dr. Fabio Cavani, and Dr. Arnold Meir) are sent to South America as part of a U.N. investigation into an ecological disaster of Salar de Uyuni. In the past, two rivers had been diverted for irrigation, but the effort failed, and the result was an ever growing toxic salt flat.

Upon landing, all three are kidnapped by the man who had become CEO (played by Michael Shannon) of the large international consortium held responsible for the ecological disaster. He seems both tormented by the disaster and uncertain of its significance in the larger scheme of things—for the nearby supervolcano, Uturunku, has begun to show a ground-lift in the areas around it, which may or may not be signs of an eruption in our time (if such a thing were to happen, and depending on the degree of the eruption, it could be a worldwide cataclysmic event).

The two male scientists are given food that induces extreme digestive distress to keep them out of the way. Meanwhile, Laura is taken to the middle of the salt flat and stranded near a rocky outcropping with two nearly blind children named Huascar and Atahualpa, the names of the last two pre-Columbian rulers of the Incan Empire, whose last independent acts were to go to war against each other. The three have been provided with enough food and water for a week, but it is uncertain whether or not they have been stranded for good.

Instead of trying to convince Dr. Sommerfield not to publish by argument, the CEO has staged the kidnapping and stranding of Sommerfield and the children with hope that it will drive home the emotional costs associated with the disaster, and that it would get her to publish a report that goes beyond statistics and figures. Later, the CEO reveals that the two children are his adoptive sons, and that their blindness is due to the disaster wrought by the CEO's own Consortium. Dr. Sommerfield is then given a first-class ticket to Rome, to visit the Santissima Trinità dei Monti convent (at the top of the Spanish Steps), which the CEO had always wanted to see, in order to view its cloister, which features an anamorphic fresco of Saint Francis of Paula praying under a tree. She urges the CEO to come with her instead of turning himself in, but he says he would be caught anyway.

Cast

Veronica Ferres as Dr. Laura Sommerfeld

Michael Shannon as Matt Riley

Lawrence Krauss as Krauss

Gael García Bernal as Dr. Fabio Cavani

Volker Michalowski as Dr. Arnold Meier

Anita Briem as Flight Attendant

Werner Herzog as Man with one story

Lilly Krug as Passenger

Production

The plot for the film was loosely inspired by Tom Bissell's short story "Aral". Werner Herzog wrote the screenplay in 5 days. The film was shot in Bolivia. It took 16 days to shoot the film in total.

Release

The film had its premiere at the 2016 Shanghai International Film Festival. It was also screened at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2016 Fantastic Fest, and the 2016 Zurich Film Festival. XLrator Media acquired the U.S. rights to the film. It was released in the United States on 7 April 2017.

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 31% based on 39 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Salt and Fire crowds together some impressive talent on both sides of the camera, precious little of which is put to compelling use." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 44 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave the film 1 out of 4 stars, writing, "It resists any narrative integrity, it chooses acting that is lifeless, it rants endlessly whether it wants to amuse logic or not." Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "one of the director's least appealing adventures."