PopSyndicate.com

Graphic and emotional, it’s hard imagining anyone not moved by Lake of Fire.

Few things are a divisive as the subject of abortion.  British filmmaker Tony Kaye tackles the sensitive subject in his new film Lake of Fire.  Kaye plays it smart and doesn’t choose sides.  At first you think it’s pro-life but as the documentary progresses, both sides play out and it’s clear that Kaye shows both sides.  Kaye’s viewpoints on abortion are well documented.  In recent interviews, he wrote about how he still grieving the loss of an abortion his girlfriend thirty years ago had, but is still pro-choice because he considers a woman’s right above all. 

Kaye doesn’t back away from the subject and includes the fringes from both sides.  This is where Kaye’s pro-life views come into play most obvious.  The crackpots on the pro-life side are much more extreme then the pro-choice side.  The pro-choice side seems almost normal compared to the Ku Klux Klansmen, hardline fundamentalist Christians and ultra-conservative Catholics arguing for pro-life.  The pro-choice hardline men (from this documentary, most hardliners are men) spout misinformed homophobic, misogynistic violent diatribes that encourage the slightly unbalanced to take action like Paul Hill, who later murdered an abortionist and his bodyguard in Pensacola, Florida. 

At 152 minutes, Lake of Fire tends to become a bit tedious.  The film is fascinating but due to its bleak subject matter, it begins to wear the viewer down.  One anti-abortionist after another spews their misguided rantings until all you know of the movement is anti-abortionist are misinformed crackpots that either don’t know what they’re talking about or potential murders.  On the other hand, the most persuasive pro-lifer is a self-proclaimed “Jewish, atheist, civil libertarian, left-wing, pro-lifer”, which only proves that extreme liberals support pro-life.  Surely there are moderates on both sides of the fence but they wouldn’t sell tickets or create as dynamic a portrait as what Kaye paints.

Kaye does get participation from some name people.  For the pro-life side we get moments from Norma McCorvey (the pro-choice plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, now a pro-life missionary), Alan Keys and Pat Buchanan.  The pro-choice movement gets Noam Chomsky, Alan Dershowitz, Jocelyn Elders and Francis Kissling.  The pro-choice side presents a more logical discussion and acknowledges some of the contradictions in a pro-life movement that cares about the rights of an unborn child but cares little for the born baby living in hopeless poverty, while the pro-life side merely tries to play off peoples emotions.

Graphic and emotional, it’s hard imagining anyone not moved by Lake of Fire.  Tony Kaye took seventeen years to put together this film and it’s the most comprehensive documentary on the subject that I’ve ever seen.  Anyone interested in the abortion debate would do well to watch Lake of Fire.  Kaye does have a slant and it’s not the final word on the subject, but the film does create a very dynamic picture of the war that wages today.

4