Best of Sundance 2023: top films from this year’s festival

Director: Raven JacksonCast: Charleen McClure, Moses Ingram, Kaylee Nicole Johnson, Reginald Helms Jr., Sheila Atim, Chris Chalk, Jayah Henry, Zainab JahTwo hands caressing each other. A long embrace between two people where we only see their arms and backs. A child’s hand on a fishing rod as her father instructs her, off camera, on how to catch fish. luxuriates in these montages. Slow as molasses and narratively opaque, it’s a movie that demands patience from the audience.Writer and director Raven Jackson is also a poet and photographer, and you can see those influences here. Ostensibly a decades-spanning story of a woman from Mississippi, it unspools like visual poem vignettes that give us tiny glimpses into that life. Watching All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt feels like watching an anthology of poems semi-connected in theme, come to gorgeous life on screen. Trying to discern a complete narrative is a futile undertaking; just relax and let it envelop you. Drawing inspiration from her own life and relatives, Jackson has created a unique cinematic experience that celebrates Black Southern life and traditions. [Murtada Elfadl]