Werner Herzog’s SALT AND FIRE – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

It seems Werner Herzog’s art persona exists in the realm of Werner Herzog, not in the realm of modern Hollywood. It’s almost as if the industry evolved around him, leaving him still chugging and fighting the auteurist good fight, churning out the same mind wrenching, thoughtful epics and strangely philosophical and human documentaries that defined his early career. When approaching a narrative feature of his, it’s important to consider this: Even his most acclaimed narrative works, such as AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD or NOSFERATU are slow building films that in their time were hailed as masterpieces (they still are today), but to the public today would probably hold stale in their sense of artful detachment, made great by their artistry, rather than their true grasp of the audience.SALT AND FIRE similarly doesn’t hold the audience in such a way, but it is not for the artful mastery on screen, it’s because SALT AND FIRE is probably the worst film of Herzog’s oeuvre.

That’s a pain to say too. Last year alone, Herzog crafted two fascinating documentaries, LO AND BEHOLD and INTO THE INFERNO.  SALT AND FIRE  shows what happens instead when a filmmaker of Herzog’s philosophical ambition attempts to take a real world topic and front-load it into a narrative feature while leaving the plot and characters in the background. The Aral Sea, the topic at the center of the film, is a real place of almost mystical qualities, a large expanse of white salt where a sea used to be. It’s haunting in many ways to see the world grown stale and Herzog’s eye for the area seems to capture the beauty and horror of the area. The problem is that the plot surrounding the Sea is, unfortunately, stale. Herzog’s philosophical musings in his documentaries enhance them to a human level, but here where they replace the human emotions of his actors, with what seems a superficial level of these musings.

Of course, this being Herzog there is actually some worth to the film, all of which is devoid of appearance in the first hour of this 97-minute movie. The beautiful cinematography and craftsmanship that Herzog and his cinematographer offer in the opening minutes of the film soon fade into a flurry of confused deliveries and perfunctory plot lines. This often happens when a narrative film is crafted around an idea rather than an actually compelling character.  The dialogue is almost harshly expositional but not totally unsavable. Gael García Bernal, who is in the film for only a few moments, makes it work though with a spark of naturalism that all the other actors (including Michael Shannon, who really could be better) avoid like the plague. The lead, Veronica Ferres, has difficulty resonating as a presence at all. Of course with Herzog, there’s an always present sense that everything may be of artistic intention, with Herzog possibly shaping the attitude toward the narrative much in the same vain as humanity’s own attitude toward the environmental cataclysm around us, that is to say with almost maddening ignorance. It’s really hard to make a movie that is intentionally bad and somewhat dry for a purpose without just making a straight up bad movie.

If one thought is left after watching SALT AND FIRE it’s the fact that this could have been a good movie and a good one from Werner Herzog nonetheless. As a documentary exploring the folly of the Aral Sea and the effects of the expansive desert of salt, it probably would have risen to the level of Herzog’s astounding films last year. The odder touches of the narrative would have been made almost immediately human because in the case of a documentary it would be authentically human. In narrative form, SALT AND FIRE dries up into a desolate expanse of 97 minutes. I hope the next project for this prolific director comes out as beautiful as they usually have.

1 of 5 Stars

XLrator Media will release SALT AND FIRE in Theaters on April 7th and on VOD and iTunes on April 4th.