THE SALT PATH is a travel film based on the eponymous bestseller by Raynor Winn, in which Winn wrote about her experience of hiking with her husband Moth, who suffers from incurable degenerative neuropathy, along the South West Coast Path, which runs for around 1,000 kilometers around the southwest coast of England. The difference between similar illness travel films: Ray (Gillian Anderson, “Sex Education”, “The X Files”) and Moth (Jason Isaacs, THE DEATH OF STALIN, “The White Lotus”) aren’t traveling by choice, but because their farm and entire possessions have been pawned. They are homeless and with no income, except for a “tax refund“ that amounts to 40 pounds a week.


And so set head off, with the travel guide of the British “hiking pope” Paddy Dillon about the South West Coast Path and Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf in my pocket. In the first days there are still French fries and scones, after which money gets tight. The hikers eat noodles and rice, without sauce. Water bottles need to be filled, and when they, rarely, go to a pub, they order hot water and share a teabag. The English south coast is a constant up and down, and even “gentle” climbs are a challenge for Moth, not to mention those that Paddy Dillon describes as “a bit of a challenge”. It’s hot, it rains, it’s cold. Ray and Moth experience everything that camping haters could hate about camping. The luggage is heavy and the sleeping bags aren’t warm enough. This isn’t at all like tourist hiking. Conversations end when, when asked whether they are retired, they answer: “Actually, we are homeless.” Nevertheless, there are moments of happy escape, the light, and the sea.


Gillian Anderson as Ray and Jason Isaacs as Moth are excellent actors who disappear into their roles. Anderson gives her Ray a long honed, intense strength, Jason Isaacs plays Moth as a humiliated guy whose investments destroyed the family, and who gradually, limping and sweating, drags himself out of the depression over his impending death and the shame of bankruptcy. Ray and Moth were citizens, now they’re really outsiders, not just living off the grid. The film shows them developing a kind of homeless pride and shifting standards. When a forgotten subscription eats up the forty pounds they need to survive, and they manage to save enough money for a snack while Moth recites Beowulf, it's a moment of triumph.


THE SALT PATH doesn’t entirely avoid the cliches of the travel film. The landscape is beautifully captured, all of the obstacles are overcome, the experience even seems to stop the disease. But the shift in perception regarding what money means is different here than in most dropout films. When Ray earns 1,500 pounds (just under €1,800) at the end through very hard work, Moth thinks they could live on that for half a year and go hiking again.

Tom Dorow

Translation: Elinor Lewy

Anmerkung der Redaktion

In den letzten Tagen ist eine Diskussion darum entbrannt, in welchem Maße Buch und Film DER SALZPFAD auf Tatsachen basieren. Am 5.7. erschien eine Recherche im britischen Observer, die die Umstände unter denen Raynor und Moth Winn (aka Sally und Tim Walker) damals ihr Haus verloren, und die auch Moth' gesundheitliche Diagnose in Frage stellte. Inzwischen hat Raynor Winn eine Gegendarstellung veröffentlicht.