It is one of the most musical documentaries I have ever seen, not just the lovely flute of Bashir Adel Aai, but the whole way the interviews are cut, with their phrases floating in the air and breaking against each other. It is one of the privileges of documentary to be able to create conversations among people who would never speak to each other, and Hamseh does it beautifully. I love the way he under informs us, so we are frequently surprised by the words and the faces they come out of. He builds the tension slowly but inexorably, with the pudding-jowled mayor as the fulcrum, a strangely affectless figure whom Hamseh rightly, I think, does not utterly demonize, who makes a journey of his own from cluelessness to -- speechlessness, a kind of metaphor for the reception of the Somali presence by the traditional locals. By the end, one feels an almost physical pressure. We are very lucky to have Hamseh: a sympathetic outsider/insider who can understand Americans better than we can ourselves.

"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.Proclaims the spokesman of the White Supremacists, "All men are created equal had never been intended to apply to any but White Christians!" as the largest police force in Maine's history converges in the streets to separate Nazi-saluting and Klan contingents from the counter-protesters.Hamzeh keeps his film boiling, escalating from the mere disturbing to an American nightmare in modern times. Reports a BBC correspondent in Africa as the reports roll in, "Maine's a great place to live, except in Lewiston."It's a matter of record that even this has passed. 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.

The subject matter is fascinating: a seemingly left-leaning town's reaction to the sudden migration of a Somali community to their town. A tolerant mayor loses an election because of it, and her xenophobic successor creates a firestorm of problems by penning an ill-conceived open letter asking the Somalis not to bring any more of their kind to town. The Somali's choice of residence is almost surreal: snowy Lewiston Maine. While the subject matter is fascinating the film is too much like a extended TV documentary segment. The same principles of selection are used unreflective: people speaking at public gatherings, confrontations with police, acts of violence. The end result of all this is that we get a much better picture of the mindset of a neo-nazi group pictured in the film than we do of the Somalis themselves. A more human touch would have been welcome, as would less of the tiresome monologues of neo-nazis spouting their nonsense. We've heard it. It's not interesting. It's not even politically significant. The 15 to 20 minutes of neo-nazi speech making presented in the film is merely annoying. The film is definitely worth watching though. It is a good study of how an otherwise tolerant town reacts to strangers of color (and Muslim) in the midst of the USA's xenophobic orgy post 9/11. Production values are generally above average, and the interviews featured in the film are generally rather articulate. It's well paced, and the sheer strangeness of the subject will keep you glued to the screen.

This is the true story of what happens to the soul of a small town in Maine when a group of Somali refugees arrives. The town divides. Many residents embrace the refugees, offering a warm welcome and compassion. Others censure them, and a white supremacist group insists there is no place for blacks.Then the mayor weighs in with a letter that reverberates around the world, bringing a harsh spotlight to a small town. The aftermath of that letter shakes the town to its foundations. Soon the story builds to a riveting climax.What makes the film so powerful is its narrative structure and the purity of the voices. Here is a documentary with the soul of a dramatic novel. The story is told entirely in the voices of the residents. No narrator intrudes. No viewpoint is superimposed. Each person portrayed in the film is honored by the opportunity to share his or her deepest feelings, uncensored by any editor or script. Even the white supremacists are revealed in their humanity, not through stereotypes. Somali families emerge as exquisitely complex human beings.I loved the movie most of all for its humanity. Yes, it's a compelling story. The way it unfolds is riveting. But the touching depth and "aftertaste" of the tale lies in the echoes of those pure voices. Each one of them is human. Each one of them is us.Marjory Bancroft