The arguments that split the town in 1917 divide it still, but within the bounds of civility. The people playing deputies and those playing their victims aren’t really enemies, and their collaboration can be taken as evidence of healing. Recreating a civic tragedy requires a common sense of purpose. But the attitudes that led to the deportation have hardly disappeared. Labor and capital have yet to end their struggle, and the abuse of police power is far from a dead issue. Many of the Bisbee deportees had Spanish or Slavic surnames, and their removal has an element of ethnic cleansing. “Deportation” is as loaded a word now as it was a century ago.

Current politics hover over the movie, even though the people in it are reluctant to talk about their beliefs and affiliations. Instead, Mr. Greene’s sympathetic method — you can feel him quietly listening and observing, leaving plenty of silence for his subjects to fill — allows the viewer to discover unstated ironies and resonances. And also, most of all, to appreciate the humanity of both the re-enactors and the long-gone figures they are impersonating.

Especially moving is the testimony of Fernando Serrano, a young man who grew up in Mexico and the United States and knew little about the deportation until he signed up for the re-enactment. His political awakening seems to happen before our eyes, as he connects his own life to past events. For others, the connection is more direct. Mel and Steve Ray are brothers who portray their own grandfather and great-uncle, one of whom was arrested by the other.

Dressing up in old-fashioned costumes and parading through town looks like fun, and it’s fun to see the modern residents of Bisbee get into character and commit to the spirit of the spectacle. And even though “Bisbee ’17” depicts a wholesome and harmonious community undertaking, it is a profoundly haunted and haunting film. What we are witnessing is not the commemoration of a past disaster but its reanimation. Every important thing this movie is about is still alive.