Playwright David Hare is a public intellectual of the old school, and the sometimes controversial, always thought-provoking author of Plenty, Racing Demon, Skyllight, Pravda, and Amy’s View (as well as the screenplays for The Hours, The Reader, and Denial). Here, Canadian filmmaker Cam Christiansen has taken Hare’s 2009 monologue on the wall between Israel and Palestine as a starting point for an animated documentary exploring what this construction stands for (very different things to different people, naturally).

The monochrome animation gives the film something of the feel of a graphic novel (I was reminded of Joe Sacco’s Palestine), both abstracting the issues but also casting sights familiar from cable news in a new and vivid light. It’s a thought provoking trip.