Out of Frame: Lake of Fire
Is there anything new that can be added to the debate over the legality and morality of abortion at this point? Finding anyone without a pretty firm opinion is difficult enough. Finding fresh perspectives on an issue this divisive, studied, thought through, and argued over is even rarer. Tony Kaye's Lake of Fire, a documentary 17 years in the making, doesn't necessarily present any new information. But it collects all those varying perspectives and passionate feelings into the most definitive and balanced examination of the issue ever committed to film.
"Film" is a key word here, and for a moment we'll step back from the subject of the movie and simply marvel at its stunning cinematic beauty. Kaye, acting as his own cinematographer, has shot one of the most visually arresting documentaries since Werner Herzog's Lessons of Darkness. Part of that is simply Kaye's innate visual sense. Most of the interviews that are central to the film are shot in intimate closeups, with subjects often addressing the camera directly. And Kaye's field work is beautiful to look at as well, more skillfully framed than many meticulously staged feature films. But part of it is also the choice of medium, and it's a striking reminder that while video is cheap and much better suited to many of the vagaries of making documentary films, it is still no replacement for film when the filmmaker wants the images to have impact equal to the facts. And that while color may be closer to reality, black and white can have a power to hit our emotions much more forcefully.
Footage in the film ranges over many of the years of production, though much centers around the mid to late 1990s when Kaye was doing the bulk of his shooting. Aside from the hair and clothing, though, being a decade old doesn't date most of the material at all. In fact, it only serves to underline the notion that the discussion tends to go around in circles, but never really move into new ground.
Lake of Fire is loose in its structure, jumping from point to point, viewpoint to viewpoint, in such a way that should make its two and a half hour runtime tedious. But that's never the case. And that may largely be because it never seeks to advance a point of view of its own. Kaye's style is at absolute opposition to the Michael Moore-influenced documentary style that has become so common, the documentary as editorial. Kaye is almost nowhere in this piece, never appearing on camera, and only heard very briefly asking an interview subject a question near the beginning. Kaye himself has said that after nearly two decades and endless reels of film, he doesn't really know where he stands on the issue, and his own personal struggle over how he feels is stamped everywhere in the film.
The images can often be brutal. Kaye shows actual abortions, and aborted fetuses, multiple times throughout the film. They're the types of images that anti-abortion groups use routinely to try to win converts to their side. Here, they're shown with less sensationalism, but no less emotional impact. Just as brutal, though, are the images of murdered physicians, killed for performing the procedure. Just as brutal also is the emotional fallout littered all around. Kaye sorts through the blood on all sides, judging no one, but showing all the judgments.
Interviews dominate the film. Interviews of physicians and the religious zealots who would prefer them killed. Of clinic workers and volunteers who have seen more kinds of pain than they can express. Of dispassionate academics providing well-reasoned arguments for (Noam Chomsky) and against (Nat Hentoff) choice, or even arguments as to why both sides are right (Alan Dershowitz).
The sum total of all of these beautifully rendered and sometimes shocking images, and the mountains of information, ideas, and words, probably isn't going to change many minds. Those who go into the movie with one point of view will find points within the film to confirm why they see the issue the way they do. Winning converts isn't Kaye's aim, and neither is preaching to the converted. His goal is simply to clear through the rhetoric, and look at abortion and its place in the American political dialog without the many filters of prejudice and anger. It's easy to forget, amid all the shouting, that abortion is an emotional, painful, and difficult issue, not just a political acid test and rallying point. And while the film is unlikely to earn him much acclaim considering his often rancorous relationship with his peers and the industry at large, it's a career defining work for the director, and an unqualified triumph.
Lake of Fire is in the midst of a one-week only engagement at the AFI Silver, so you only have until Thursday to catch it.