“Philippe Garrel, a prodigy of the French cinema (whose work was first included in the New York Film Festival in 1970, when he was twenty-two), has developed a spare method, a self-imposed classicism of dramatic intimacy… [THE SALT OF TEARS] rises very high with its fusion of brusque candor and unspoken yearnings…feels like a revisitation of the austerities, aspirations, and humiliations of an earlier age, a return to primordial experiences and artistic ambitions… The film also happens to have one of the best dance scenes in the recent cinema.”