LGM Film Club, Part 539: All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

Raven Jackson’s excellent 2023 film is a film about memory in the black South. It’s more or less about her life, though too discursive to be specific. It’s about a young woman, mostly–but also a girl and an old woman as it goes back and forth through time–who is deeply connected to land and family in this place and the film embraces the memories of everyday life in a really powerful way. We can all relate to this in some way. We are all rooted in place–or if not, we are rooted in placelessness–as we grow up. We remember details. They details don’t matter. For this film, its skinning a catfish and feeling the mud on a lakeshore on your hands. For me, it’s playing in our backyard and seeing my dad’s rhododendrons grow and pickup baseball with my friends. For you it is whatever it is. You don’t have to think you lived some great childhood or be overly nostalgic for this to matter. It’s just part of you. The main character here remains in place, Jackson very much does not. It doesn’t really matter. It’s a lovely film about these issues and while a mediative film, you should watch it. Beats whatever the fuck is on MSNBC or whatever it is called now anyway.