“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” does not open on a dirt road or in a salty ocean, but on an inland Mississippi lake, with a young Mack’s (Charleen McClure) hand holding a fish. She strokes the fish for several seconds, and, apart from the occasional twitch, the captured fish does not writhe or wiggle. It seems at peace outside of the murky, ever-flowing waters.

Raven Jackson graduated with an MFA from NYU’s film program and her debut feature premiered at the 61st New York Film Festival. The film revels in the serenity of small moments, lingering on minute-long hugs and back-country grass patches. Starring Charleen McClure and Moses Ingram, “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is a coming-of-age-story that traverses decades, observing the defining moments, people and places of a woman’s life in Mississippi. With little dialogue or exposition, the film focuses on stimulating the eyes and ears, wanting its audience to experience and recall the sensorial specificity of an important memory. 

The movie has outstanding sound design. Everything sounds crisp as if Jackson deliberately constructs scenes where all details are essential parts of memory. Booms of thunder to even the tiniest tapping of a crayon are brittle. Music isn’t just laid over other sounds, instead it fills spaces and bounces off walls. The sounds of Mack’s Mississippi envelop us completely, with the constant crunching of leaves and chirping of crickets as Mack develops.

Although the sound design in “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is a privilege to experience, the film will most likely be remembered for its more overt visual lyricism. Jackson exhibits a clear love for repetitive motifs, which she uses to unite the nonlinear storyline. She represents Mack’s youthful level of maturity through braids, portrays dirt as a vessel for exploration and, most notably, focuses the camera on long, recurring shots of hands. As Mack matures, we see her change what she explores, yet never how: as a child, she strokes fish scales and taps crayons with curiosity. As a teenager, she kisses her hand and holds others’ as she becomes her own person. As an adult, she comforts others, rubbing their hands, backs and feet as she embraces her loved ones. As an older woman, she returns to the lakeshore, reflecting on her life as she sifts through mud.

Between the hypersensitive audio, the acute visual details and an emphasis on touch, the film creates a synesthetic effect. The texture of each of Mack’s experiences is palpable. We remember, then feel, the fabric of embraces and the flesh of hand holds. We feel the texture of fish scales, the sharpness of reeds, the crumble of dirt, the cohesion of mud, to name a few. The film is too vivid not to feel, not to be a memory that shapes a person. 

Somehow, Mack’s transformation from child to mother, from incorporated to isolated, from student to teacher, feels constant. Times, dates and stories blur, and all we know is that things are always changing.

There is one scene that sums up the entire movie: Mack sits with her daughter, Lily (Robin Crudrup), on the porch as it rains. Lily has been raised by her sister, and Mack, who has avoided water after her mother died by a lake in a storm, tells Lily that she loves the rain. “It doesn’t end or begin,” Mack says. “It just changes form.”

“What changes?”

“Water. All these drops might be a river someday. Might be snow. Might be in you. Wanna taste it? Before it changes to snow?”

“Yeah. Before it changes to snow,” her daughter states.

The movie’s structure is ever-changing, and so are our lives. Sometimes we are jarred by the movie’s structure. Sometimes us fish feel serene outside of the ever-churning waters. 

The film is slow and vague, not working as a character study and especially not as a quest, as we never get to know Mack’s personality or motivations. It has a story, but isn’t one. It is a visual spectacle and an anthology of being — memories connected by the sounds and sensations that remain constant throughout the ever-changing waters of life.

The move is an artistic coming-of-age film. All dirt roads taste of salt — the salt is everywhere, so scattered it’s unnoticeable. All our paths are marked by change. It’s constant and often imperceptible. All of it is unavoidable. And Jackson wants us to not just notice, but revel in both small and big changes and the memories that sparked them. We are not just the people and places we have loved, but the changes their memories bring upon us. 

“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is now showing in select theaters around New York City.

Contact Liv Steinhardt at [email protected].