It's bay area in 1957, along with an American master piece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment with three Fragrant threads: the tumultuous life events that directed a new Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (that the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding cartoon that echoes the startling originality of this poem itself. Each three legged at a genre-bending hybrid which brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.