British filmmaker Tony Kaye tackles the subject of abortion in what is called a powerful and graphic new documentary.
"Lake of Fire," currently on limited release in the United States, unwinds over more than two and a half hours of interviews with some of the leading figures from the pro-life and pro-choice camps. But it is the graphic and disturbing depiction of termination procedures, filmed like the rest of the movie in black and white, that marks the film out.
"From the moment I started making the film I thought I have to show an abortion, which at the time had never been done before," Kaye, best known for his 1998 neo-Nazi feature "American History X," told AFP in an interview. "There was no question about whether or not that was the right thing to do because if I'm documenting two sides of the argument, that is one side of the argument and you have to show it," he said.
One scene depicts a doctor sifting through a surgical tray after performing a late-term abortion, where the grisly residue of an arm, a foot and part of a face can be clearly made out. "It's about as shocking as any motion picture can ever get. It's illegal to film someone being killed," said Kaye.
They may be the kind of images used by anti-abortion activists, but Kaye also doesn't shy from showing pictures of a kneeling and bent-over naked woman who died after performing a botched abortion on herself with a wire coat hanger.
Kaye worked for more than 15 years on "Lake of Fire" -- anti-abortion activist John Burt's description of the hell awaiting abortionists -- and said his goal when he set out was simply to show both sides of the argument.
"The concept was to make a film about the debate over the issue of abortion but to make it in a non-propagandist way and to create a kind of war of words." He said he wanted "to create this kind of a weave where we really explore the issue without taking any sides."
Even after spending years working on the project, Kaye, however, admits to not knowing where he stands in the debate. "My position on the subject is that I don't really know what's right. I didn't know much in the beginning... and at the end I was just as confused."
Well, he doesn't seem to be confused about the fact that he has been filming "someone being killed." If that is the case then surely Mr. Kaye can acknowledge that many abortions involve killing someone and at the very least we shouldn't be able to just do that for any reason whatsoever, which, in the U.S., we pretty much can.
By the way, Mr. Kaye states that no one has ever filmed an abortion before but I think the sequel to the 1980s anti-abortion film "Silent Scream," a film called "Escape From Reason," did that. Maybe not.
RLC
