Technical data
- Title: ROAD TO SALINA
- Original title: Sur la route de Salina
- Year: 1969
- Production: Corona Cinematografica, Fono Roma, Selenia, Transinter Films.
- Country: France and Italy.
- Direction: Georges Lautner.
- Cast: Mismy Farmer, Robert Walker, Ed Begley, Rita Hayworth.
Description and synopsis
Road to Salina is a rarity that is much appreciated by cinephiles. It’s a minor but influential film, so much so that it served as inspiration for some aspects of Kill Bill, the famous saga of Quentin Tarantino, a director who has declared his love for this film. Moreover, the film was one of the last films to feature a true legend of the movies: Rita Hayworth. The unforgettable star of Gilda and former wife of Orson Welles took part in Road to Salina just a few years before she began to show symptoms of Alzheimer’s, a disease that prevented her from continuing to work in cinema.
This psychological drama tells the story of a strange family set up, which leads to a somewhat incestuous relationship. The choice of a taboo subject and the strong erotic charge are surprising in a film made during Franco’s dictatorship. The story is set in a Mexican village called Salina, although it was filmed entirely in Lanzarote, where the landscape plays an important role in highlighting the anxieties and loneliness of the protagonists.
The film has the merit of taking two of the island’s iconic settings that had hardly ever been used for cinema: the salt flats of Janubio and La Geria. The salt infrastructures of Janubio, in the south of Lanzarote, are among the largest of their kind in the world. Although only a small part of its extension is still in production today, the beauty of its structure and salt production continue to amaze visitors. The salt flats were an important traditional industry in the history of Lanzarote, which at one time had almost three dozen salt flats because of the key role they played in salting the fish that was exported off the island.
La Geria brings to the peasant tradition to the forefront and is one of the most unique agricultural landscapes in the Canary Islands and in Spain. Its origin goes back to the volcanic tragedy of the eruptions that devastated Lanzarote for almost six years (1730-1736). The lava buried almost 20% of the island and many villages, but it also affected many kilometres of land, leaving it buried in volcanic ash. Over the years, farmers have transformed thousands of these hectares by hand and camel to make the most of the black ash, which allows all the moisture to seep through and be absorbed while preventing it from evaporating. Thanks to this volcanic material, locally known as rofe, picón or arena, Lanzarote was able to cultivate fruit trees and especially grape vines, in holes dug in the black mantle, giving rise to the island’s wine-growing tradition.
The aesthetics of La Geria and the manual nature of its cultivation turn this area into an immense garden which, as well as being listed as a Protected Natural Landscape, has received numerous awards as a Cultural Landscape and is the best example of the island’s agricultural architecture, an example of the perfect integration of human activity and nature.
