The Salt of the Black Earth

These people had no nobility and no bourgeoisie, they only had their rebels and their soldiers, and they had their leaders. They were walking towards Poland, straightening their back that had been bent over by a weight which would have overwhelmed others. With these words, Kazimierz Kutz's film storytelling begins, as a tribute to the former inhabitants of Silesia. Salt of the Black Earth - according to the anecdote, Kutz got the idea for the film in his sleep - takes place in 1920 and tells the story of the second Silesian Uprising. The main character here is young Gabriel Basista, who, together with his kin, is fighting for a common cause. His battle adventures are arranged in a series of loosely connected, simultaneously spectacular and poetic episodes. Salt... is not so much a film with a historical backdrop, as one with a mythological backdrop; the film's vision is openly simplified and idealized. This colorful, quite eccentric work is the first part of a Silesian trilogy, which also includes Pearl in the Crown and Beads from One Rosary.