Salt and Fire may feel like a joke of sorts, it’s one attuned enough to a genuinely idiosyncratic sensibility to still register enough as a genuine search for something new.

For all his faults as a narrative film-maker, Herzog can at least be counted on to keep his non-documentary excursions unpredictable.

Fans of [Herzog's] unique style and humor will find much to enjoy in Salt and Fire, even if the film does lack some proper cohesion. Anyone who’s wavering in their critical affections, however, can easily use this as an example of what happens when a good artist buys into their own hype and mythology.

Perhaps the best that can be said of Salt and Fire is that its flaws are wholly Herzog’s. Those flaws are deep. But so is the man responsible for them.

Salt and Fire is a doodle, suggesting an assemblage of ecological riffs and fantasias that Werner Herzog may have entertained while making Into the Inferno.