Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado has borne witness to some of recent history’s most colossal catastrophes. Active since the 1970s, Salgado has documented the Sahel drought, genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and numerous other human cataclysms. His ambitious photo essays often take years to shoot.

In the Oscar-nominated documentary The Salt of the Earth, German auteur Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Pina) collaborates with Salgado’s son Juliano to craft a thoughtful and compassionate look at the man’s life and work.

Like Salgado’s photographs, The Salt of the Earth is mostly in black-and-white. While the film spends plenty of time on Salgado’s biography, the most compelling sequences involve the photographer commenting as his work appears onscreen. Occasionally Wenders shows Salgado’s face, and it’s clear from his eyes that he’s being emotionally transported back to the time and place of the photograph.

This approach wouldn’t work if Salgado’s work wasn’t so staggering. But his high-contrast images are deeply affecting. They straddle the line between art and journalism in a way that few other photographers accomplish. They convey both the humanity of his subjects and the enormous, tragic scope of human suffering they face.

The biographical elements carry the same weight as the mini-exhibitions. Salgado has entered a new phase of his career, photographing natural landscapes untouched by civilization, as well as venturing deep into the Amazon to photograph largely uncontacted peoples. It’s a controversial move that radically recontextualizes all his previous work. Watching him work in this new, invigorated period is uplifting, underlining the hope that permeates even his most despairing images.

There’s also a lot of pleasure in meeting Salgado’s family, particularly his ancient, stooped father. He’s a melancholy Brazilian farmer who has lived to see his land rendered barren by deforestation. The Salgado’s family uses the land to replant over 1500 acres of rainforest, a project which further emphasizes Sebastião’s newfound hopefulness.

Wenders’ gentle direction combines with composer Laurent Petitgand’s contemplative score and Salgado’s images to create a documentary worthy of the praise it’s received. It’s unafraid to take its time or linger on difficult subjects. Like the artist it portrays, it knows it’s important to look in places we’d rather not.