MOVIE REVIEW

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'Protocols' tackles racist book by Walt Addiego (SF Chronicle)
If you hold any illusions about the level of blind stupidity, paranoia and hatred in the air, here and abroad, "Protocols of Zion" will cure you.

Director Marc Levin ("Slam"), surprised and dismayed by the lunatic fringe reaction to Sept. 11 -- that it was a Jewish conspiracy -- began to wonder how such a noxious idea came about. His investigation led him to that bible for anti-Semites, the fraudulent "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

The book was concocted in Russia at the end of the 19th century by the czar's secret police and purports to lay out a plan for Zionist domination of the world. That the document is a forgery has long been known, but to this day, many neo-Nazis, Jew haters and Holocaust deniers count it as authentic. The book is frighteningly popular in the Arab world.

This film about the spread of intolerance is a documentary, but with a personal bent. Levin's grandfather was a prominent man at his Brooklyn temple (and, posthumously, plays a role in the film, along with Levin's father). The director reveals himself to be not particularly religious -- he has said that at the time he made the film, he didn't belong to a synagogue -- but it was partly memories of the piety of his grandfather's generation, and the sufferings caused them by the "Protocols," that inspired the movie.

Levin offers a brief account of the "Protocols" and talks with historians and rabbis about its malign effects. But the most telling parts of the film are his visits with the book's proponents. He listens to, and even tries to reason with, street crazies at ground zero (who refer to the city as "Jew York"), a skinhead who sells Nazi paraphernalia like copies of "Mein Kampf" (and the "Protocols," of course), virulently anti-Zionist Palestinian Americans and the like. You have to admire Levin for mostly keeping his temper with these imbeciles.

Among Levin's most intriguing interview subjects is Frank Weltner, a radio host who runs a Web site called Jew Watch, and seems unusually calm and articulate, given his daffy political beliefs. His reasonable demeanor makes him perhaps the most unnerving figure in the film.

Levin talks to moviegoers about "The Passion of the Christ," and we see some brief interview footage with Mel Gibson and his even more controversial dad, both of whom have been accused of anti-Semitism. Levin also talks with militant American Jews ("Kahane was right").

This is powerful and depressing stuff. What do you say in response to a clip from an Arab TV movie that shows Jews murdering Christian children for their blood?