The 2023 Sundance Film Festival kicked off last month. The Hollywood industry—producers, directors, actors, and critics—descended on Park City, Utah for ten days to watch the movies of some of the brightest, budding filmmakers. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Sundance moved to a virtual format, allowing those who are not able to get to Utah participate in the festival. They have kept the virtual option since.
This is my first year covering the films at Sundance. I started with one this year with the hopes of growing to more in the years following, and maybe, attending in person some day.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (A24 Films) dir. Raven Jackson
Movies can be like paintings—some artists fill their canvass from tip to bottom leaving little to interpret. Other artists are more vague, allowing for your imagination, your memories, your meaning to come forward. Which type of painting you like depends on your taste in art. For me, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt was the latter, and I loved it.
Produced by independent juggernaut A24 Films along with Barry Jenkins (director of Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk) and Adele Romanski (producer of both films), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt takes us on Mackenzie’s, or Mack’s, lifelong journey from childhood into older age. In her debut feature film, Raven Jackson tells Mack’s story in a non-linear fashion; we bounce around the most memorable moments of her life—when her family’s house burned down, when she had her first kiss, when she gave birth. Like in real life, the pace of those moments crawl by. Jackson lets each scene marinate in a way that may be uncomfortable for the audience. She focuses on the indelible details that our memories bring us back to when we reminisce.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is both poetic and symbolic. Jackson mentioned in the film’s Q&A that the process of directing and editing “was a lot of finding…we were looking for moments that rhymed.” She often comes back to the color red, rain, and water as motifs meant for the audience’s interpretation, and at different times in the film the meaning can change. It’s also filled with close-ups throughout the film—we are meant to be there alongside the characters feeling the emotions they feel. The movie is set in Mississippi, the hometown of Jackson’s mother. The river where they fish, the church they attend, the house they live in are all a part of Jackson’s family lineage.
The authentic nature of the film stood out to me the most. In the midst of the silent moments, where Jackson allows scenes to breathe, I found myself connecting the film to my own life. It captures our internal narrative we all have. If I turned left instead of right at that important fork in the road, would my life have turned out better? The non-linear nature of the movie also felt realistic. When we’re in the middle of our happiest moments or lowest, it feels like whatever’s happening will last forever. And our minds often go back to those times, replaying in our heads even the tiniest strands of memory we still possess. As time goes, we lose pieces of that memory but some of it sticks even until our last days.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt won’t be for everyone. For many it will be too slow, too disjointed, and not focused enough on plot to capture their attention. It’s a true independent film, made by a director who carefully considered everything we see and hear. But if you’ve dealt with any of the movie’s thematic elements, especially the grief of losing a person close to you, I think you’ll get a lot out of it. Jackson was clearly inspired by her mentor Jenkins—it looks and feels like different parts of both Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. While her film did not quite reach the levels of those two masterpieces, Raven Jackson clearly has a bright future ahead of her. When All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is released later this year or next, be sure to catch it.
If you're looking for insight into how the sausage is made, Ted Hope @
, wrote an informative piece about the challenges American independent filmmakers who debut their films at Sundance face. You can read it below: