The Salt Line

There is a shot about forty minutes into The Salt Line that tells you what kind of film you are in. A woman stands at the end of a jetty in weather that has clearly not been waited out for the camera, and the film simply lets her stand there. No score. No cut to a reaction. Just the sound of water doing what water does.

The inheritance

Lindqvist has made a film about debt — the financial kind, and the other kind. Her protagonist returns to a village that has been quietly drowning for a generation, and the script is unsentimental about what that has cost the people who stayed. The dialogue is sparse to the point of austerity, which will lose some viewers in the second act.

What holds it together is an extraordinary performance at its centre, and a refusal to explain itself. The film trusts you to notice things. When the explanation finally arrives it lands as recognition rather than revelation, which is much harder to do.

Is it worth your evening?

Yes, but go in rested. This is a film that gives back exactly as much attention as you bring to it, and it is not interested in meeting you halfway.