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Its perspective is that of an outsider trying to make sense of an impossibly complicated, foreign situation — but of course, who qualifies as an insider and who as an outsider is part of what Hare is interested in.
The title refers to the partition that divides Israel and the West Bank. (Hare’s companion play, “Berlin,” dealt with the barrier that split the German city.) With a combination of motion capture and more free-form renderings, Canadian animator Cam Christiansen gives visual life to Hare’s words. The film’s imagery — black-and-white with strategic splashes of color — moves fluidly between the abstract and the tangible. During Hare’s discussion of the wall’s construction, slabs of concrete fall from the sky. Near the end, animated graffiti depicts an imagined outward view of the sea.
Speaking to Israelis and Palestinians, Hare reflects on the wall from political, philosophical, historical and aesthetic angles. Recounting a visit to the West Bank city of Nablus, Hare describes it as a trading center with a problem — “nobody’s allowed to go there.”The author David Grossman (played by actor Paul Jesson) characterizes Israel in similarly paradoxical terms. “To the world, Israel seems powerful and aggressive,” he says. “Yet to itself, it seems weak and frail.”
Imperiously wringing his hands at both sides of the conflict, Hare never brings his observations together in a satisfying conclusion (not that any was likely, in just 80 minutes). He does sound pleased at having appointed himself ambassador. “The artist doesn’t choose the subject,” he says. “The subject chooses the artist,” adding that the Middle East “answers to something in me.” Does it, though?
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Additional Information:
“Wall”
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.