It is not an easy task to make a documentary that doubles as a will. But with access to family members, doctors, personal reflections, and hospitalizations (including surgery), “Salt in My Soul” poignantly recreates the life of Mallory Smith, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at age 3. She died in 2017 at the age of 25, just as she was starting an experimental treatment to destroy the antibiotic-resistant bacteria that had made her disease course that much more difficult.
Despite the challenges of living with the disease, she became an accomplished athlete, a Stanford graduate, and an indomitable life force, judging by the testimonies of her loved ones and by her own words. The director, Will Battersby, uses audio and video that Smith recorded and a diary she kept privately for over a decade. (She gave her mother the password to use after her death.) Her writings were summarized in the 2019 book “Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life.”
The film becomes a lot: a memorial; an awareness tool about cystic fibrosis and the possibilities of bacteriophage therapies; and a consideration of how it is possible to live the way Smith said she aspired to—assuming she would die the next day while still, as she wrote it in a journal, “extend my life + make plans for my future.”
Smith thought that knowing she didn’t have much time gave her a perspective most people don’t have. Her diary, a friend suggests, gave her an outlet for her frustrations that allowed her to remain outwardly optimistic.
“Salt in My Soul” is extremely painful to watch, especially since it shows the rollercoaster of Smith’s recurring hospitalizations. But it does paint a vivid portrait of who she was and what she believed.
Salt in my soul
Not judged. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters.
