Protocols of Zion
Director: Marc Levin
THINKFilm, in theaters now.
As the opening credits of Marc Levin’s Protocols of Zion, rolled across the screen, I hoped the film would add a new dimension to the already well-covered topic of anti-Semitism. How, I wondered, can we fight anti-Semitism today and collaborate with other anti-racist movements? How is today’s anti-Semitism unlike past forms?
After meandering through New York City, however, Levin’s film failed to illuminate much beyond its own artistic and ideological flaws.
Its narrative wandering from European anti-Semitism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to post-9/11 New York to rural skinheads, Protocols leaves the viewer wondering where we’re going next and why. By virtue of its utterly unattractive aesthetic, which is characterized by poor camerawork, awkward graphics, and Levin’s presence in almost every scene, the film raises the stakes for the political weight of its message.
Unfortunately, the bar is not met. In addition to not offering an incisive examination of anti-Semitism, the film is remarkably problematic around issues of race, gender, and class. The anti-Semitic ideas of the subjects, the vast majority of whom are urban men of color and rural white men from West Virginia, are never contextualized within their particular communities and histories. Many of their statements are echoes of those articulated by the nineteenth-century Russian propaganda pamphlet, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which was proven fraudulent in the 1920s, but continued to incite anti-Semitic pogroms and other incidents. The film fails to probe the connections it makes between multiple ages and influences.
Though it is certainly important to confront anti-Semitism wherever it exists, and all other forms of racism as well, Protocols itself perpetuates such problematic thinking. The only person we are encouraged to see in context is Levin himself, while all the subjects who express anti-Semitic beliefs are effectively talking heads.
As the film trudged along, I hoped it would examine the different contexts and significance of the opinions of rural West Virginian skinheads, black men on the streets of New York City and the propaganda of the nineteenth-century Russian government. What I found instead struck me as a sloppy assemblage of testimonials that failed to demonstrate dangerous anti-Semitism.
One of the most disheartening things about Protocols is the fact that it ignores the intelligent conversations and anti-racist activism that flourish among Jewish students. Indeed, Protocols steers clear of the multi-issue work that speaks to—and comes from—us, and instead provides a surface-level romp through Levin’s life, all the while providing a dramatic re-reading of the charges made against Jews over a century ago.
A successful film about contemporary anti-Semitism would lead us through a critical history of race in America, the complicated role that Israel plays, and would offer some new possibilities for the future. Though it covers an important topic at an important time, Protocols trips over itself and fails to provide the perspective we so desperately need.
