« spring break | Main | neglect. sort of. »

post- the letter.

so, last night's documentary, The Letter, did little more than expose the fact that there is racism, xenophobia, and jingoism alive and well in small town Maine (ok, second largest city Maine).

it wasn't as hard-hitting as i expected. it wasn't as in-your-face as i expected. it simply told it as it was. shocking? i suppose, a little, having family there. inciting? no. moving? no. exciting? no. empowering? no.

it just portrayed a community in chaos. sad, sad chaos. the saddest thing is, i could see it happening here, easily. granted, cowtown is a MUCH larger city, but people are already seeing the -isms on a smaller scale every day.

----

the one thing i didnt catch, near the end of the film, mainly because those around me were talking, was when the interviewer was talking to the mayor about "and how did it make you feel to know that you were being branded as a racist when (someone, daughter maybe), had just adopted two black children?" and the mayor couldn't speak. nala, did you catch this?

Comments

The Letter," an accomplished, vibrating, fast-paced documentary by Syrian-American Ziad Hamzeh and crew whose eight cameras rolled for a total of 55 hours, takes a strong viewpoint for the Somalis and for American idealism. While it does give time to the mayor's contention that the city just did not have the resources to accommodate that sudden addition of refugees, it does not allow much, if any, to the eventual economic solution. Rather, this is about racism. In bitter, large doses. The mayor's 3-page "Open Letter to the Community" of Oct. 3, 2002 advises the 1,100 Somali immigrants that they are straining the town's resources and, explicitly, that they should not invite any more of their people to come. The assertions true or not, the blunt and tactless words drew all media attention to this beleagured and completely overwhelmed mayor who appears in the film as possibly sincere but too small in his perceptions to handle the issues involved. As the presence of the White Supremacists looms, he decides to take a vacation in Florida. As Hamzeh's cameras and film editors go to work, we are drawn into the rage of the town's unemployed and fearful. The locals, not used to people of color in the community, vent their frustrations in contorted shouts of anger as rumor and imagination run rampant with invented charges and bizarre statements born of hysteria. Emotional close-ups dominate the film, the twisted faces of hate intertwined with those of reason, so skillfully designed by Hamzeh that absolutely no conventional narration is needed. Racism, and the reactions for and against it, tell their own story.

Gratifyingly, the film shows, the agony of the event may have been worth it, in the end strengthening the old Maine racial acceptance tradition and exposing the inanities and ignorance of agitators. It is dynamic, focused and compelling.

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)