"All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt" - Film Review
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is structured like a memory. Some things are hazy, others are far too clear. There’s no concrete beginning, middle, or ending, nor is there a specific conflict the plot is working toward. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is chronicling a childhood turning into an adulthood and all that comes with that inevitable, painful, joyous transition. This film will be compared to the films of Terrence Malick for its languid pace and loose sense of direction, but writer/director Raven Jackson has created something singular. It is so firmly rooted in a specific time, place, and set of experiences that All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt stands firmly on its own, adding a new voice to the world.
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Mack is at the center of All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. It is her memories we are experiencing anachronistically. The role is split into three sections of her life: childhood (Kaylee Nicole Johnson), young adulthood (Charleen McClure), and adulthood (Zainab Jah). It would be meaningless to explain any plot specifics because the film is large and small at the same time. Large in the sense that it spans decades of Mack’s life, but small because we’re only given brief memories to piece together into the bigger picture, to try to understand Mack’s desires, hopes, fears, regrets. The film is a lyrical, expressionist rumination of growing up.
All Dirt Roads Salt of Taste opens with a close-up of young Mack’s hands wrapped around a fishing pole. There are larger hands around her small ones, and an older man’s voice can be heard explaining when to reel in the line. The camera returns to close-ups on hands many, many times throughout the film. It’s the movie’s way of imparting the sensation of touch on its audience without actually having a physical connection. There’s an intimacy in the hands of the people in All Dirt Roads Salt of Taste. Watching what they reach out for, what they hold, what they miss. Our hands are often more expressive and honest than our words, and it’s clear Jackson wants us to notice them even when they aren’t in close-up.
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Memories take the forefront in All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. The film jumps effortlessly through time, but this is slightly jarring in the beginning. Audiences are used to films that present themselves in linear format or provide title cards that clearly show time has progressed. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt flits from moment to moment, but forever trained on Mack. It’s reminiscent of the Madeleine L’Engle quote: “I am every age that I have been.” For the film to cut from young Mack in a field to older Mack reuniting with a childhood friend is to show the sinews of memory and how our brains are not always logically connecting our thoughts. Audience members, and for Mack, are all of their ages at once.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is visual proof of the ways history expands and repeats itself, and of how it’s possible to love and cherish memories without living in the past. We are all the sum of the people we’ve met, the places we’ve been, and the emotions we’ve felt. What matters is how we take those building blocks and move forward.
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