In 1969, the film’s producer, Jerry Levitan, then 14-years old, tracked Lennon to Toronto’s King Edward Hotel after hearing a rumour that Lennon had been spotted at the Toronto airport. He headed to the top floor of the hotel, and after getting a tip from a friendly maid who asked him “You are looking for the Beatle?”, Levitan managed to sneak his way into Lennon’s hotel room and, old skool reel-to-reel tape recorder at the ready, convinced Lennon to do an interview with him.

The resulting 40-minute chat was edited down to 5-minutes for “I Met The Walrus” and serves as the soundtrack, with director Josh Raskin saying “I just wanted to literally animate the words, unfurling in the way I imagined they would appear inside the head of a baffled 14-year-old boy interviewing his idol.”

That is precisely what he accomplished – in spades. With on-point pencil illustrations by James Braithwaite and computer animation by the amazing Alex Kurina, the film is a seamless and stunning integration of narrative with visual. It’s like a school boy’s doodle brilliantly come to life. Plus there’s an undeniable Canadian tilt to the entire project that I like. Jerry Levitan is Canadian, the interview took place in Toronto, the film was created by Toronto animation production company Electric Company and premiered here in 2007.

More than that, I feel that Canada holds a political place in the world – a mindful, measured, anti-war stance – that Lennon would have agreed with.