''Salt and Fire'' is a 2016

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

written and directed by

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; né Stipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusu ...

. The film stars

Michael Shannon Michael Corbett Shannon (born August 7, 1974) is an American actor. Shannon received two Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nominations, for '' Revolutionary Road'' (2008), and '' Nocturnal Animals'' (2016). He received Screen Actors Guil ...

, Veronica Ferres, and

Gael García Bernal Gael García Bernal (; born 30 November 1978) is a Mexican actor and filmmaker. He is known for his performances in the films ''Amores perros'' (2000), ''Y tu mamá también'' (2001), ''Bad Education (2004 film), Bad Education'' (2004), ''The Mot ...

. It tells the story about a hostage-taking situation set against an ecological disaster in Bolivia. It had its premiere at the

Shanghai International Film Festival The Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF, , French: ''Festival international du film de Shanghai'') is the largest film festival in Asia and China's longest-running international cinema event. The first festival was established in Octobe ...

. It was selected to be screened in the Special Presentations section at the

2016 Toronto International Film Festival The 41st annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 8 to 18 September 2016. The first announcement of films to be screened at the festival took place on 26 July. Almost 400 films were shown. Awards The festival's final awards were ...

Plot

Three scientists (Dr. Laura Sommerfield, Dr. Fabio Cavani, and Dr. Arnold Meir) are sent to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

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 Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

, but the effort failed, and the result was an ever growing

toxic Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subst ...

salt flat. Upon landing, all three are kidnapped by the man who had become CEO (played by

) 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 A supervolcano is a volcano that has had an eruption with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 8, the largest recorded value on the index. This means the volume of deposits for such an eruption is greater than . Supervolcanoes occur whe ...

, 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 Atahualpa (), also Atawallpa or Ataw Wallpa ( Quechua) ( 150226 July 1533), was the last effective Inca emperor, reigning from April 1532 until his capture and execution in July of the following year, as part of the Spanish conquest of the In ...

, 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 Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

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 Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, to visit the Santissima Trinità dei Monti

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

(at the top of the

Spanish Steps The Spanish Steps () in Rome, Italy, climb a steep slope between Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church, at the top. The monumental stairway of 135 steps is linked with the Trinit� ...

), which the CEO had always wanted to see, in order to view its cloister, which features an

anamorphic Anamorphic format is a cinematography technique that captures widescreen images using recording media with narrower native Aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios. Originally developed for 35 mm movie film, 35 mm film to create widescreen pres ...

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

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 *

as Matt Riley * Lawrence Krauss as Krauss *

as Dr. Fabio Cavani * Volker Michalowski as Dr. Arnold Meier *

Anita Briem Aníta Briem (born 29 May 1982) is an Icelandic actress. She is known for her role as Queen Jane Seymour on ''The Tudors'' and her role as Hannah Ásgeirsson in ''Journey to the Center of the Earth''. Personal life Anita was born on 29 May 19 ...

as Flight Attendant *

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

. It was also screened at the

, the 2016

Fantastic Fest Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas, focused on fantasy, horror, sci-fi, action and cult films, the largest genre festival in the United States. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse. Lisa Dreyer ...

, 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

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, 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 Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, 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 ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' called the film "one of the director's least appealing adventures."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Salt And Fire 2016 films 2016 thriller films American thriller films German thriller films French thriller films Films about volcanoes English-language French films English-language German films 2010s Spanish-language films Films directed by Werner Herzog Films set in Bolivia Films shot in Bolivia 2010s English-language films 2010s American films 2010s French films 2010s German films English-language thriller films Spanish-language American films Spanish-language French films Spanish-language German films Spanish-language thriller films