LAKE OF FIRE
Rating: *** (out of ****)
Cast: Alan Dershowitz, Noam Chomsky, Alan Keyes, Pat Buchanan, Norma McCorvey, Paul Hill, Nat Hentoff, Frances Kissling, Randall Terry
Writer: Tony Kaye
Director: Tony Kaye
On DVD from ThinkFilm

Can there ever be such a thing as an unbiased movie, particularly with a subject as divisive as abortion? It’s an issue that inspires so much passion that I wonder if anyone could rise to the challenge. I thought Todd Solondz came close several years ago when he made Palindromes, a very disturbing film about a young girl who gets an abortion and runs away to join a pro-life ‘family.’ Now comes Lake of Fire, an ambitious documentary by Tony Kaye, the British director who nearly got chased out of Hollywood several years ago for his career-killing behavior surrounding the editing of American History X. Kaye spent seventeen years collecting footage for this film, with his stated goal being to make the definitive abortion documentary.

Kaye has attempted to cover both sides of the issue impartially. I don’t know if the film is “definitive” (how could it be?), but Kaye certainly tries to cover just about everything. Interviewees range from Noam Chomsky to Norma McCorvey (the infamous “Roe” of Roe vs. Wade), and practically every abortion clinic shooting is covered at least in passing. We see rallies, pickets, shooting victims, pregnant teenagers, preachers, philosophers, rock musicians, news reports, and, in a few nearly unwatchable scenes, aborted fetuses.

Many critics have said that it is impossible to assign either a “pro-life” or “pro-choice” label to Lake of Fire. Kaye has refused to make his own position clear (if anything, the movie itself is his position), and both sides are given strong defenses, but the pro-choice side is given stronger defenses. Most of the film’s most articulate speakers (Noam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz among them) are pro-choice, while the majority of the pro-lifers are simplistic and closed-minded bible thumpers. One of the few reasonable figures representing the pro-life side is Nat Hentoff, an atheist libertarian who writes for the Village Voice. He says that there needs to be consistency among the pro-lifers: not only should they be opposed to abortion, but also to capital punishment, war, and governments who wage war. But Hentoff is a pretty lonely voice of reason. One of the many dunderheaded pro-life interviewees seen in archive footage (who turns out to be abortionist murderer Paul Hill) says that not only should abortionists be executed, but so also should any kind of blasphemer. This, according to Hill, includes those who say the word “Goddamn.” Was Hentoff really the only intelligent pro-life person Kaye could find? To be fair to Kaye, he makes the controversial decision to show, in graphic detail, several actual abortion procedures. In one unforgettable scene, we actually see the remains of several of the aborted fetuses. There are little feet, arms, and eyes in this puddle of muck.

Kaye shot Lake of Fire in black and white, a brilliant decision for many reasons. On an aesthetic level, it looks great, making even the oldest footage look like it was shot yesterday. On a practical level, it doesn’t punish the audience any more than it has to during the procedural scenes. On a philosophical level, it conveys the polarized way people are expected to react to the abortion issue.

Kaye’s film portrays American in an ugly light, a land of closed-minded, angry, and sour people completely to listen to the other side. Intentionally or not, it also portrays the pro-life side as being somewhat in shambles – why must they build their case around the irrational and inarguable concept that is God? At 152 minutes, Lake of Fire is too long, with some of the interviewees becoming redundant, perhaps a side effect of Kaye’s self-conscious goal to make the ultimate film on the topic. Still, this is a constantly engrossing, sometimes shatteringly powerful, and inarguably important work. If Lake of Fire fails to be as even-handed as Kaye might have liked, it might not be Kaye’s failure as much as America’s.