The Journal

Issue date: 11/8/07 Section: Lifestyle

Media Credit: Photo Courtesy of Thinkfilm An anti-abortion protestor expresses his outrage in "Lake of Fire."

"Lake of Fire" is British director Tony Kaye's engrossing 2006 documentary that covers the issues surrounding American women's right to have their children aborted safely and professionally. The documentary has been in production for 15 years, since Bill Clinton assumed the presidency, and has finally gotten limited release in the United States.

The only feature length film to date that seriously tackles the issue in a broad scope, as well as having been filmed while much of the turmoil was in progress, "Lake of Fire" falls short of being
entirely inclusive.

Early on, Kaye shows segments of footage from pro-life and pro-choice rallies across the country, some of them shocking in their extremity. While mingling with the protesters, we are first introduced to some of the most brilliant thinkers of our time, including Noam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz, to whom Kaye returns for elucidation throughout the film.

After about two hours, we know about all there is to know about the two extremes on each side of the debate, and with some input from more moderate voices such as the Catholics for Free Choice political organization, Kaye seems to conclude the discourse with a sentiment by Chomsky. In such an emotionally-charged debate, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor emeritus explains how some decisions must eventually be made on "where human life begins … somewhere between the skin cells you wash off your hand in the bathroom and the extermination of an innocent three year old."

The range of possibilities, like all the varying opinions, is as vast as all the oceans put together, and Kaye, in a brilliant stroke of cinéma-vérité, closes the film with an unsettlingly candid visit to the abortion clinic.

The most shocking reaction to this film would be to snub it, because it doesn't spend enough time on every perspective. It may be true that any moderate pro-life voice is pretty much unaccounted for, but never before have people had an opportunity to see in black and white footage this issue presented so objectively.

Some of the film wavers a bit too long while discussing obscure fundamentalist anti-abortion groups, collectively called by one speaker a trend of "Christian Reconstructionism," where a quiet revolution is under way with the goal of turning the United States into an Iran-like theocracy.

While intriguing, these elements take away from the heart of the debate, and maybe Kaye did this intentionally, but this is certainly one of the problems tied to the near impossibility of the two sides having a civil, intellectual deliberation.

There will be other attempts to do what Kaye has done here, and they may be more successful at offering audiences a more complete review of every position, but until then, the artistry and expansiveness of Kaye's work is the superior to date.

"Lake of Fire" played this past weekend from Nov. 2 through 4 as part of the Webster University Film Series, and will be released on DVD later this year.

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