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Lake of Fire (2006)

Director: Tony Kaye

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Movie review

From Time Out New York

“Abortion is every woman’s tragedy,” a friend of mine, who’d undergone the procedure several years earlier, once told me. Her sentiment echoes that of Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice, interviewed in Lake of Fire, who says, “I never met a woman who did not take abortion seriously.” If only Tony Kaye took a similar stance. Despite the grandiose claims of working nearly two decades to complete his project, the millions of his own money spent, Kaye does not take abortion seriously. He treats the subject using the basest of exploitation tactics.

Twenty minutes into Lake of Fire, after rather banal footage of pro- and antichoice forces clashing at a January 1993 rally in Washington, D.C., Kaye shows an abortion being performed. Not content to document fetal tissue being suctioned out of a woman’s vagina, he proceeds to film, in extreme close-up, the sifting of the material, revealing a tiny eye, a minuscule foot. No interviews with medical personnel are provided to explain what, exactly, is happening. Kaye, who, in the press notes, admits to being “addicted to controversy when I began,” boasts of this scene: “There is no other footage in the history of the world that is as shocking as that. Actually, there must be something—but you’d have to look pretty hard!”

This is not impartial filmmaking. This is manipulation. Kaye’s documentary is part of a recent trend of films that show deep distrust with the procedure. In Knocked Up, abortion can’t even be muttered; it’s simply “the a-word.” The Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, much like Lake of Fire, shows little concern for the politics of a woman’s body and far more investment in freaking the audience out. Abortion is still—barely—a legal right in this country. Whether or not you find it a tragedy that this right exists, Kaye’s tabloid tactics will do nothing to elevate the discussion.

Author: Melissa Anderson 2007-10-03 19:44:35

Time Out New York Issue 627: October 4–10, 2007

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User reviews of this film

  • james diamond said...
    Posted on Oct 02 2009 02:15 What a sad, pathetic little review. The fact that the abortion footage shocked you so much speaks volumes to the relevance of Tony Kaye's documentary.
    Why are you so offended, Melissa?
    Can't leave your safe little world?
    Ironically, the film uses a quote from Time Out New York in its theatrical trailer. A quote that doesn't derive an entire review out of 2 minutes of footage.
    Report as inappropriate
  • nick said...
    Posted on Jun 14 2008 07:09 The documentary was so well done in cinematography, scoring, editing alone. Things your little mind can never grasp Miss Anderson,
    And it did elevate the discussion tremendously.
    Your review isn't even worth the bandwidth.
    Report as inappropriate
  • sm said...
    Posted on May 06 2008 10:27 If only movie reviewers were as impartial as they demanded others be...
    Report as inappropriate
  • Bob said...
    Posted on Apr 28 2008 03:49 I agree with Mark, if you were to have watched the rest of the movie maybe you would have truly understood that Kaye did, in fact, take a very unbiased perspective to this complex situation
    Report as inappropriate
  • Mark said...
    Posted on Apr 17 2008 22:48 The movie is 152 minutes long. Care to address the other 132 of it, or did you stop watching after the first 20.
    Report as inappropriate
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Lake of Fire

Cast & crew

Director: Tony Kaye

With: Noam Chomsky, Alan M. Dershowitz, Randall Terry

Rated: NR

Duration: 152 mins


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