Filmmaker Marc Levin (L) with National Alliance chairman Shaun Walker in Protocols of Zion (Photos: Blowback Productions)

Maybe it is just my obviousness or some sluggish dearth of imagination, but every time I walk out of a documentary these days, I revisit the same question in my head. And the better the documentary--especially the more intimate, sprawling and/or complex--the louder the question's echo: How do documentary filmmakers know when they are done with their films?

In the case of Marc Levin's new doc Protocols of Zion--a highly personal glimpse at an enduring source of anti-Semitism in the wake of 9/11-- the answer was almost as engrossing as any of the clashes or introspection portrayed onscreen. "I have to be honest with you," Levin told The Reeler during a conversation earlier this week. "The film isn’t done. It asks a lot of questions that aren't answered. This process and whatever I do next is part of it. No film is ever truly done if it provokes a dialogue. Some people are frustrated--they say: 'You never told us in the end what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to feel. And I'm frustrated, and I'm upset at you that you didn't come up with a solution.' And I'm like, 'Hey, beyond "Go do good," I don't know exactly where to start."

Indeed, Protocols does end on the three-word phrase emblazoning his grandfather's gravestone, while Levin and his father stand together in the snow considering the impossible magnitude of such a simple admonition. But Protocols thrives in deconstructing the abstraction of goodness; Levin himself breaches insular man-on-the-street ideological chatter among Muslims and black nationalists, extreme-right talk radio, white supremacy organizations and a range of others on the social margins who perpetuate anti-Semitic myths as a sort of reflexive self-defense. In this case, their hate stems from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a century-old work of Russian czarist propaganda that purports to outline a Jewish plot for world conquest. Long disproved as a fake, the book nevertheless persists as a cornerstone of a different type of "good"--a movement for which inhumanity masquerades as progress, fear as faith.

Pairing a vagueness and specificity you would find in a mediocre horoscope, The Protocols reacquired significant cultural resonance after 9/11. Rumors stirred in the Arab-American community saying no Jews had died in the World Trade Center attacks; in fact, Levin's first encountered the resurgent Protocols while in conversation with an Egyptian cab driver who told him that Jews had been warned to avoid the WTC that Tuesday morning. A culture of skeptics evidently attributed their survival to the plan laid out in The Protocols, a book Levin had read years before but had since regarded as a kind of a historical curio.

Levin--whose Slam claimed Sundance's Grand Jury Prize in 1998--said the incident provoked him to revisit The Protocols' influence on a 21st century audience. In doing so from ground level, his inquiry assumes the proportions of the personal quest most popularly associated with Michael Moore. But even in confronting an Aryan skinhead entrepreneur who assumes that Rupert Murdoch's media dominance implies Jewish heritage, Levin checks his indignation at the door. The guy actually listens--most notably during a segment with the proprietor of the widely read Jew Watch Web site, on whose radio show Levin sits in with genuine puzzlement as the target of callers' rage.

"It became my methodology, unconsciously almost, because I honestly was just trying to find out," Levin told me. "I didn't want to just make a point as much as try to figure out what the hell is going on. ... In France, a number of the journalists said, 'You're the anti-Michael Moore.' And I said, 'Why do you think that? I think what he's done for the documentary is tremendous.' And they said, 'No, because you're method is like the total opposite.' They were saying what you're saying. 'You're not going out to set people up or make a point as an agit-prop master. You're trying to search for an answer and asking questions and leaving things open to the viewer.' Interestingly enough, I found certain people in the United States are almost upset by that."

Levin goes to prison for his art--well, sort of

And sure--in eschewing dogma for perspective, Levin opens himself to severe criticism from all sides. One older Muslim in the film takes Levin to task for showcasing the hyperactive flourish of younger men who vocal indictment of Jews is virtually indistinguishable from their mugging for Levin's camera. But as mentioned on The Reeler last month, Levin also invited Black Panther stalwart Malik Zulu Shabazz (who notoriously maintains the myth of no Jews dying on 9/11; Protocols places the actual number of deaths closer to 400) to a preview screening at HBO for what the filmmaker claims was an attempt to stimulate dialogue. Levin said Jewish Defense Organization reps phoned him soon afterward to voice their outrage that a "self-hating Jew" would even consider letting Shabazz through the door.

Shabazz indeed attended the screening, after which he described it as "informative, but ... unbalanced" even as he admitted not knowing where he stood on the 9/11 myth. That was a good enough start for Levin. "That wasn't a retraction," he said. "It wasn't an apology. But it certainly wasn't a reiteration, and in my mind it was just the smallest opening of, 'Maybe I have to rethink exactly what I'm going to say about this.' "

That Levin's Protocols of Zion draws such fire--that it dutifully avoids preaching to frothy-mouthed ideological choirs--is a function of its craft. Even though Levin's earnestness might have attenuated a bit by the time he drops in for opening night of The Passion of the Christ or reflects on slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, his confessional exasperation resounds so much more authentically than anything in the oeuvre of agitators like Moore or Robert Greenwald. It seems a natural consequence of his maintaining humility toward a raft of subjects who would just as soon see him and every other Jew plunked back in a ghetto somewhere.

And with that in mind, Levin's "Go do good" ending represents a whole other beginning, in a way, encouraging dialogue and vigilance. "We're all Jews, meaning we're all potential victims," he said. "The big question that comes out of all of this is how do you fight these people that feel hate can be holy and violence can be sacred? And if I don't agree with them, and you don't agree with them, then we're expendable? How do you fight it? Whatever you feel about the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, I think we know that's not going to get it done. It's a battle of ideas--a battle of consciousness. If we in New York City--which is the metaphor for the mix, with all its problems--if I can't go out on the street here and talk to Shabazz or the Arab-American community or the Palestinians and we can't have a dialogue here--it can be passionate, it can be wacky, it can be crazy, all those things--but if we can't do it here, how the hell do we expect the Shiites and the Sunnis and the Kurds to sit down in Baghdad? It has got to start here."