Malcolm Pullinger Movies

For 22 years, Gannet Hosa-Betonte has suffered from an extreme developmental disorder known as Mowat-Wilson syndrome - a condition that makes cerebral integration next to impossible, thanks to impaired communication between the two hemispheres of the brain. Gannet's inability to sort out his sensory perceptions renders him mute, but he can communicate "yes" and "no" via touch, and will indicate his basic desires by pointing and gesturing to large, colored icons in a book that ease his day-to-day functioning. Although Gannet cannot distinguish between externalized sounds, he demonstrates a heightened response to a whole spectrum of noises - from dogs barking to water running from a faucet. In Robert Arnold's gentle and sensitively handled biographical portrait The Key of G, the documentarist follows San Francisco resident Gannet with a movie camera for a three-year period and observes his day-to-day routines. Arnold places his heaviest emphasis on Gannet's interactions with a group of caregiver friends - several artists and musicians who lovingly and compassionately help him undertake tasks that most everyone takes for granted - from climbing out of bed in the morning, to getting dressed, to taking a shower. The filmmaker also documents one of the pivotal moments in Gannet's life, when he moves out of his mother's house and into a residents with his friends, and must endure a subsequent period of adjustment. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi