Her Socialist Smile

John Gianvito is one of the most personal voices in contemporary cinema: a born experimenter, his work is scarce and transcendental. Ten years after Vapor Trail (Clark) (2010) and five after Wake: Subic (2015), his monumental diptych on the colonial history of the Philippines, Gianvito takes back up the approach seen in Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007) of exploring obscure paths in American history, turning his attention this time to the writer Helen Keller (1880-1968), the first deaf-blind person to earn a college degree. Seeking out the radical form that might represent Keller's boundless universe, Gianvito composes a portrait that forces the definition of the film itself. (GDP)​