Dir. Julia Bacha. 2009. N/R. 70mins. Documentary.
Documentaries warrant viewpoints, but they should also provide perspective on more than one side of a contentious issue. Julia Bacha's look at the problems surrounding Israel's security fence barely affords screen time to Jewish military personnel; its principal concern is lionizing the titular West Bank town's Palestinian residents, and you almost wouldn't know that sympathetic Israeli comrades had also nonviolently opposed the barrier's construction. The fact that it's not the least bit interested in mounting an evenhanded inquiry into the region's fractured dynamics turns what could have been compelling into just more preaching to the choir.---Nick Schager