At times during “Lake of Fire,” it becomes hard to look at the screen. This is not just because the movie contains graphic footage of abortion procedures, crime scenes and a photograph of a woman who died during an attempt to self-administer an abortion (in the era when abortion was illegal).
It’s also because the movie presents a parade of faces and voices from America today, some of them toxic enough to induce nausea.
“Lake of Fire” lasts 21/2 hours, and was shot and assembled by director Tony Kaye, who has worked on the project since at least 1992 (the earliest footage in the film). Kaye, whose only previous feature was “American History X,” made this film in black and white — a wise choice considering the graphic nature of certain images, but one that also lends an eerie timelessness to the film.
There is no narration. Events unfold, and Kaye holds nothing back. Visits to abortion clinics are followed by interviews with anti-abortion protesters. Some of these people are socially acceptable — if you think that describes Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, seen here at a rally shouting, “Jeffrey Dahmer believes in freedom of choice!” at pro-choice demonstrators and then muttering to the camera, “You can’t even talk to these people.”
And some are clearly wacko, including the bespectacled Paul Hill, whom Kaye films at demonstrations long before Hill murdered a doctor who performed abortions.
Kaye also films a bizarre, clearly unbalanced priest who rants about Satan worshippers performing ceremonies at abortion clinics. And then there’s a pro-choice punk band, whose blithering lead singer performs a dance with a wire coat-hanger while almost naked.
Thankfully, Kaye moves away from the freak show aspects of the debate to more thoughtful speakers, including Village Voice critic Nat Hentoff, a liberal writer who is against abortion, and attorney Alan Dershowitz. We hear the saga of the original “Jane Roe” of Roe vs. Wade notoriety, a woman who reversed her opinion on abortion after being befriended by anti-abortion activists. The film closes by following a 28-year-old woman through her experience at an abortion clinic.
Kaye’s material gradually suggests that the anti-abortion movement is merely the arrowhead of a larger trend in many parts of the country toward theocratic values (exclusively Christian, in this case) and against feminism and civil rights.
There is no overt editorial comment on this, and Kaye seems to be presenting this range of information and images in order to force both sides to rethink their positions. I wonder if the extreme nature of the movie’s images will make people react rather than think, yet by the time you get to the end of the film’s 152 minutes, Kaye has created time and space to allow a measured response. But it’s still a difficult movie to look at.
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