“The Whips, as silent as hunting cats, surrounded Blood Burrow in the hour before sun-up and began their sweep as the morning dogs began to howl.”
So begins SALT, as a young man, Hari, is forced to watch as his father is taken by the soldiers of Company to serve in slavery in the mines of Deep Salt, from which no worker ever returns. On this day Hari sets out on his quest to escape the slum of Blood Burrow, to flee the city, to free his father.
Radiant Pearl of the Deep Blue Sea, known simply as Pearl, is a princess in this world – a pampered young woman, born into one of the ruling business houses; a daughter of Company. But she is promised in marriage to Ottmar of Salt, a man of staggering cruelty. On this day she sets out on her quest to escape this union, to flee into the badlands outside the city; to begin a new life.
It is in the badlands that Hari and Pearl meet; and where their separate quests become inextricably linked. One is escaping a fate worse than death; one is chasing down death itself. Neither will succeed without the other.
SALT is an epic love story. It is set on a planet that may or may not be Earth; post some apocalyptic war, in the aftermath of which a whole new feudal order has grown up. Company rules; the wealth is in the hands of powerful families, who plot and scheme against each other; the peasants of Blood Burrow try to survive. That is the new world order.
Hari and Pearl are the star-crossed lovers of SALT. Their meeting is not easy, for those who pursue Pearl, to bring her back to her jilted husband-to-be, are also those who could stop Hari in his rescue mission. At first it seems their quests are mutually exclusive, that it would be safer for them to part, to go their separate ways, to their separate fates. But destiny (and love) has a way of intertwining people and Hari and Pearl soon learn that the powers they share make them much stronger as a unit than they ever would be standing alone.
Their fate is to live – or die – together.
SALT is also a story for our times. The ‘salt’ of the mines of Deep Salt is a radioactive isotope. It is Ottmar’s plan to use this isotope to create weapons of mass destruction; to use them to destroy the other families; to rule the planet himself. This civil war, as the families tear each other apart, is the grand back-drop against which Hari and Pearl’s love story is played out.
But this is no simple parable. This is a story about human failings – greed; anger; the desire for power. What happens if these weapons fall into the wrong hands? What happens if the oppressed of this world see an opportunity to become the oppressors? What happens to the finer human emotions then?
SALT is an ambitious feature-film project from South Pacific Pictures. It is a story that is both epic and intimate – a story with a very human heart, about the enduring power of love, set against a world that is doing its best to tear itself apart. Based on the book SALT by Maurice Gee, winner of the Young Adult Fiction section, NZ Post Children's Book Awards 2008. “Pearl and Hari went on, through the forest, through the jungle, over the Inland Sea and built their home and crops and Pearl had her daughter.
They waited for the others who would come to them.”
SALT is a major feature film. Its themes and story will resonate with mainstream audiences. Its protagonists are young and attractive, its setting is a mythical post-apocalyptic world and its backdrop is the preservation of the planet.
SALT is in development with South Pacific Pictures Ltd – producers of the award winning WHALE RIDER.
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