An Exploration of all Mirror Moments in "All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt" circa 2023
From Tennessee to Mississippi
Happy New Year y’all! I hope that the first couple of days of 2024 have been allowing you to rest easier. Thank you for supporting D.O.T.S. & interacting with the archival explorations. Please continue to share D.O.T.S. with other members of your community.
Today’s post is the first contemporary archival material to be added to D.O.T.S. This archival material fits into all five mirror moments: other ways of knowing, pace, land, language, & generational freedom. This debut film, written & directed, by Tennessean Poet Raven Jackson is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, & other streaming platforms. Raven’s film is entitled All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt and is an A24 film.
This beautifully sparse film takes its name from the tradition of eating clay dirt. Generational storytelling is engaged when Grandma Betty verbally tells her grandaughters about the tradition. Raven’s poetic practice also shines through in how she captures the intimacy of the body through touch. There are many scenes showcasing a long hug, hands holding each other, & the gentle rise & fall of the body as it breathes. Follow the hands, listen to the breath, & listen for the rain. There is embodied knowledge within these Southern Bodies that sometimes does not require language to be expressed.
The film has little dialogue, allowing for the noises of the South to be heard in the silence. After all, true silence is not accessible to most people. In our silence, Southern Silence, there are cicadas, crickets, wind, rustling leaves, birds, & rain accompanied by the thunderous claps of hands. Raven’s choice to center the body & the Southern landscape of Mississippi emphasizes D.O.T.S. mirror moment of pace.
That inherently slow & deliberate pace of life in the South comes through in Raven’s work. Raven’s deep reverence for the land & how it can sometimes seem to slow time is seen in the movie scenes. A better use of words to describe film scenes can be found in an interview where Raven told Devika Girish she views scenes as portraits.
Raven goes on to express how she took inspiration from her grandmother’s photo albums. You can see some of these images present on Raven’s Instagram. Additionally, you can see selected works of Raven’s own photography. Upon viewing Raven’s sources through social media, you can see how her hand was intimately involved throughout the whole process. Some scenes look like archival images because of how still the subjects are. Furthermore, the composition of the wide shots forms captivating lines for your eye to follow. I’m thinking of the portrait of the subjects sitting in the tree, outside the house, and Grandma Betty with her two granddaughters on the couch. These portraits look exactly like portraits you would see on the walls of your grandparent’s house.
Raven captures portraits that are reminiscent of Gordon Parks & Constantine Manos. Moreover, if you are a Black Southerner, Raven’s portraits & this film are reminiscent of what it means to be rooted in the South. Which is why it is present in the D.O.T.S. archive.
Please take the time to indulge in this meditative film if you have the space & capacity. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt belongs in the canon of great American films. The portraits linger in your mind long after you have finished viewing them. This is what I believe makes a film life-changing. If a film lingers in the body after the viewing experience is over then it has touched you. In turn, hopefully, your generous & kind actions as a result of interacting with the film will touch someone else. To use Raven’s words in the film, “It doesn’t end or begin, it just changes form.”
Thank you Raven for amplifying the voices, people, & stories that are assumed to come from nothing. Thank you for making the voices that ring in assumed silence be heard.
