Araya

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Araya

1959

1h 30m

Documentary

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

89%

Tomatometer

27 Reviews

92%

Popcornmeter

50+ Ratings

A chronicle of how people use an old salt mine.

Richard Brody

The New Yorker

11/04/2019

Benacerraf's grand style captures the drama of subsistence in the face of nature; the overwhelming beauty of the wide-open spaces contrasts with the workers' burdened trudges through them.

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Lisa Kennedy

Denver Post

04/09/2010

3.5/4

This expertly restored black-and-white work is a thing of wonder.

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

01/14/2010

3.5/4

This astonishing documentary, so beautiful, so horrifying, was filmed in the late 1950s, when an old way of life had not yet ended.

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Marya E. Gates

Cool People Have Feelings, Too. (Substack)

02/13/2024

The film takes on a more haunting tenor as you slowly realize what she’s actually captured is the end of a way of life and the slow death of a community.

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Fedor Tot

Vague Visages

06/13/2023

Given Araya’s small-scale origins in a country without a major film industry, it remains a fascinating testament to both the lives of the peninsula’s inhabitants and the film’s own creation.

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Amy Taubin

Artforum

06/02/2015

A stunning, strangely liminal movie in form and content.

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s r

@ScottR 12/20/2020

A stark realist documentary showing the harvesting of salt in Araya near Venezuela. A humbling reminder of how lucky we are and how far we've come. Saw it on TCM.

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10/24/2013

Stark pyramids of salt, austerely beautiful salt miners (Women in bleached white muslin, men doing back-breaking labor in white suits and straw hats).

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11/24/2012

A great movie for so many reasons. Even if the director has said now and again that this is not a documentary, but a fiction film it is impossible not to see how it actually documents the way salt was exploited in the salt mines of Araya. Breathtaking images and a beautiful text make this an unforgettable visual poem.

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02/06/2010

Exquisita composición lírica y tributo a una población y una región olvidadas. Solo la narración tan formal menoscaba algo el efecto total, pero no deja de ser impactante. / Exquisite lyrical composition and tribute to a forgotten people and land. Only the very formal narration undermines somewhat the overall effect, but it remains striking.

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10/08/2009

Excellent cinematography! Better humanity! A Venezuelan's masterpiece!

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Margot Benacerraf

Director

Margot Benacerraf

Screenwriter

Pierre Seghers

Screenwriter

Henry Nadler

Producer

Guy Bernard

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Synopsis

A chronicle of how people use an old salt mine.

Director: Margot Benacerraf
Producer: Henry Nadler
Screenwriter: Margot Benacerraf, Pierre Seghers
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: Spanish
Release Date (DVD): Apr 5, 2011
Runtime: 1h 30m