ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT – SLIFF Review

ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT offers a visually beautiful mediation on childhood, family and love, that begins with sisters growing in a lushly green rural Mississippi landscape, and then reaches into adulthood. The film is more a lyrical poem to a time and place, than a plot-driven drama, so it is best enjoyed when you can just embrace it’s dreamy memories of childhood friendship, warm family moments and young bittersweet romance, and let the lovely imagery and dreamy feeling float you downstream.

This lovely, dreamy piece of cinema art was written and directed by award-winning poet, photographer and filmmaker Raven Jackson, making her feature film debut. It is a lyrical film that powerfully evokes its place and time, and the people in that landscape.

Shot on 35mm film, ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT is filled to the brim with lovely, beautifully-composed, evocative images but little dialog, as it follows a Black woman named Mackenzie, nicknamed Mack, as she grows up, comes of age and matures, among family and friends in rural Mississippi. Mack is particularly close to her sister Josie and her childhood friend Wood, later a crush, as they grow up largely outdoors. Rather than being strictly linear, the film jumps around in time, showing us scenes of young Mack fishing with her father Isaiah (Chris Chalk), being cradled as a baby by her mother Evelyn (Sheila Atim), warm memories of little girl hugs with grandma, and reconnecting with her now-grown childhood crush.

The focus is on the natural world, and on human feelings and bonds, whether childhood joys and new discoveries or moments of grief and heartbreak, throughout a life. The writer/director was inspired partly by her own family, particularly her mother’s and grandmother’s roots in Mississippi, and aimed to make a film about family and knowledge and more that is handed down generation to generation. The film’s title comes from a poem Raven Jackson wrote, based on the tradition of rural Southern Black women eating clay dirt, a practice carried from West Africa, where it is still found today. There is a scene in the film where young Mack helps the women in her family extract just the right kind of clay from roadside clay banks.

We see the main character Mack at various ages but Charlene McClure plays her in the majority of scenes, between teenage and her thirties. Like the dream-like photography, McClure and the rest of the cast give moving performances, as the actors convey complex emotions with little dialog. Several scenes feature long, warm hugs, with a rocking motion the gives a feeling of dancing. The focus is on the feeling.

If you are looking for a plot that moves along briskly, this film is not for you. ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT is much more about feeling, about a sense of place and human connections, than it is about story (although there is one), more like a cinematic poem than a narrative tale, which seems fitting for a poet. One has to enjoy the journey and the scenery along the way, more than be in a hurry to reach its destination, to enjoy this visually lovely film. That means it is not for everyone but it is a wonderful immersion for the right audience.

ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT was shown as part of the 2023 St. Louis International Film Festival and opens in theaters on Friday, Nov. 17.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars