Filmmaker Tony Kaye, best known for "American History X," has been working on LAKE OF FIRE for the past fifteen years and has made a film that is unquestionably the definitive work on the subject of abortion. Shot in lumin... more »ous black and white, which is in fact an endless palette of grays, the film has the perfect aesthetic for a subject where there can be no absolutes, no 'right' or 'wrong.' He gives equal time to both sides, covering arguments from either extremes of the spectrum, as well as those at the center, who acknowledge that, in the end, everyone is 'right' - or 'wrong.'« less
Robert Byrd | Minneapolis, MN United States | 03/10/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I saw this film at a Toronto Int'l Film Festival industry screening and thought it was one of best documentaries I have EVER seen! I've read a couple of reviews that have called it the definitive film of the subject of abortion - I completely agree. I've never seen anything so complex, complete and emotionally wrenching as this epic work. It stayed with me long after the screening. In fact, it's been a couple of years since I've seen LAKE OF FIRE and it continues to haunt my thoughts. I weeped at the end. My only criticisms are it's length (far too long) and it's use of music, which often bordered on excessive and manipulative. But, those are relatively small concerns when weighed against the film's many positives.
I LOVE documentaries and have seen nearly every major work produced in the past 20 to 30 years (as well as not so major films). "Lake of Fire" may well be my favorite - I'm still deciding if any of the other films I've loved delivered the same unrelenting, yet profoundly emotional punch to the gut that this one did. This is the best film no one has ever seen! What a pity!!!!"
This one's for the history books!
Marian M. Matsunaga | sequim,WA | 04/02/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
""Lake of Fire" is an in-depth look at the Abortion issue. No matter which side you happen to belong, Tony Kaye gives both sides equal time. There are interviews of people off the street, as well as comments from Writers, Attorneys, Doctors, and Patients on the subject. There is no narrative, and Tony Kaye was wise to let these people speak for themselves.
There were many issues raised within the subject of Abortion, on both sides, that make one go HMMMMMM. There IS graphic footage contained in this film, so wait until the kids have gone to bed, to pop this film in the DVD player.
The most surprising thing is that the woman who is at the heart of the landmark Roe V Wade decision, is now in total opposition to the Law she was instrumental in creating. The subject of Abortion clinic bombings and the assassinations of physicians who work in Abortion clinics is not only touched upon, but the blurring of the Law vs. Morality argument is a case in point of how divided we are, when the right to life issue is raised. We see in the film, tapes of the bombers/shooters making their case to the police while in custody. I may be a bit biased, but the Pro-Lifers looked a little crazy to me. It's hard to see someone's point of view when Religion makes it's way into a conversation about this subject.
Whether you are Pro-Life, or Pro-Choice, this film is an education in what defines us as human beings. Does life begin at birth, or the Zygote stage of developement? How do we resolve the issue? I don't believe it really can be. I believe in the right to choose, to have control over one's body, financial security and education. There are many women today, who would have been marginalized, and possibly welfare mothers, were it not for Roe V Wade.
Women, as well as Men, owe it to themselves to see this film. There is no better film out there, that is this comprehensive. You will be changed after seeing it."
A documentary that lets the viewer make up his own mind
Roland E. Zwick | Valencia, Ca USA | 05/28/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"****1/2
We've been taught to believe that the purest and best documentaries are those that take a definitive stand on an issue. Such a one-sided approach is supposed to bespeak a righteous passion on the part of a filmmaker - as if dogmatism, in and of itself, were an indisputable virtue. But what if the issue at hand is such a morally complex one that it simply doesn`t lend itself to the strident arguments and easy answers of a black-and-white diatribe? Might it not, then, be best to drop the "know-it-all" posture of the partisan zealot and, instead, attempt to look at both sides of the issue from a position of objectivity and fairness?
That is the approach that filmmaker Tony Kaye has taken in "Lake of Fire," a documentary on abortion that attempts to examine both sides of the issue in as unbiased and evenhanded a way as possible. For once, the impassioned spokespersons in both the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" camps are free to have their say and to make their case, without commentary or condemnation from a judgmental third party. In so doing, he has fashioned an unflinching and uncompromising look at one of the issues that most divides Americans today - and will surely do so for a very long time to come.
Watching "Lake of Fire" is a bit like being a ping pong ball in a high-stakes table tennis match. Just as we find ourselves agreeing with a representative from one side of the equation, we are bandied back to the opposing side by what appear to be equally compelling arguments emanating from a spokesperson there. And back and forth we go. For while there are "nutcases" and "screwballs" on both sides of the divide (and they certainly get ample opportunity to voice their views here), many of the people who are interviewed offer sound, reasoned arguments for the positions they take. At a lengthy two hours and thirty-two minutes, Kaye's film has plenty of time to take us into the emotionally-charged world of abortion politics, represented most vividly by the impassioned rallies and protest marches that all too often devolve into name-calling shouting matches that cloud the issue and further alienate those in the political center. Moreover, in what is essentially a new American "civil war," both sides come to the battlefield armed with gruesome images of those who have already perished in the conflict - the pro-lifers of dismembered fetuses, the pro-choicers of murdered doctors and victims of "back alley" abortions.
Kaye is to be particularly commended for not sanitizing or sugarcoating the actual abortion process, clearly assuming that we are grown up enough to face the truth without the need for coyness or comforting filters. Intriguingly, Kaye has opted to film his movie in black-and-white rather than color, a very shrewd and wise decision, since the stark imagery serves to underline the seriousness and gravity of the issue.
If there's a weakness to the film it is that there may be a bit too much emphasis on the movers and shakers in each of the groups and not enough on the ordinary, average citizens whose lives have been directly affected or severely altered by abortion (or the lack thereof). The movie does, however, end on such a note, taking us along with a young woman as she goes through the step-by-step process of an actual abortion. It reminds us that, after all the speeches and marches, all the clinic protests and killing of doctors, the issue finally comes down to an individual woman and the agonizing decision that she alone must make.
With his film, Kaye clearly wants to make us think, but he doesn't tell us HOW to think - and that`s what separates his work from that of so many of his filmmaking contemporaries. How people will react to this film is anyone`s guess. All I know is that, no matter which side of the struggle you may come down on - or even if you have somehow managed to remain scrupulously neutral about it up to this point - "Lake of Fire" will indeed make you think long and hard about the issue."
Talk about "though provoking"...
J. BAILEY | Ohio USA | 05/01/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I can't add much to the great reviews already written here, other than to say I think this doc will leave the vast majority of people at least a little uncomfortable with their stance on the issue of abortion. It probably won't change anyone's mind (I don't believe that's the film's intent) but it will shine some light on why people feel so strongly about the issue - on both sides. And why there are no easy answers.
"
Unforgettable
B. Tween_DeLions | USA | 05/11/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I've always been pro-choice, and I still respect a woman's choice in regard to pregnancy. Being male, I can't know subjectively what a woman goes through during pregnancy. It's easy, now, in the days of birth control, to imagine that pregnancy is something entirely under the control of the female. But that's not entirely true. They have more control than ever, but they still don't have total control. Nature is a powerful force. And humans, no matter to what degree we feel we have subdued nature, are ultimately swept along by nature's tides.
Women, being politically and physically secondary to men for who knows how many thousands of years, have always had difficult choices. And few men will ever understand the suffering women have undergone or the nobility of how they endured it. Men have an impulse toward sex without the worry of consequences. Women have always been the one who must "put on the brakes". When a man has an opportunity for sex, it's far easier for them to ignore the consequences than it is for a woman. Thanks to the invention of the birth control pill, this has changed. But it doesn't change the fact that throughout human history, sex and pregnancy has been a terrible paradox for women. They have equally strong sexual impulses as men, but the consequences of sex have always been far more perilous for them than for us. And this is something that men will never truly understand subjectively.
Throughout history whenever women have had miscarriages, they saw the human characteristics of the fetus in whatever stage it had developed to. This is something females have known for tens of thousands of years. And because it's natural for women to want babies, we as males can never understand the emotions women have gone through when they saw their dreams of motherhood dashed, by looking at a spontaneously aborted fetus or a still-born child. Obviously the further along a fetus is developed, the more traumatic it must have been for the would-be mother.
And so for all the years I was steadfastly pro-choice, it never occurred to me what abortion actually entailed. This documentary changed all that. It was very hard for me to look at the images of aborted fetuses in various stages of development, dismembered.
I think what was hardest was to look at was fetuses with fingers. Because once they grow fingers they look like little people. Still, I must force myself to remember that women throughout history have seen these things as the result of miscarriages. Men, generally, have not. This is a side of femininity that men are mostly ignorant of.
I once read that among American Indians (Native Americans) women kept the details of their menstrual cycles secret from the men. When women were having their periods, it was traditional to leave the tribe and go to a special place only for women who were menstruating. I suppose they kept the cycle secret from men in order to have a place of refuge, where any woman in trouble for any reason could go and find the company of women to advise them and support them. It gave women a little extra control over their lives. They were smart women.
The point is that women have suffered in ways that men can never understand, throughout the history of mankind.
Now, regarding the fairness of the documentary. Most of the pro-lifers in the movie were very far right. One man was a white supremacist, or a former white supremacist. So I don't think that was fair, because I'm sure that there are pro-lifers who are very nice people. On the other hand, some of the pro-choice people seemed to discount the tragic aspects of abortion a little to quickly and freely. They seemed to be making excuses that I couldn't quite agree with.
But what overwhelmed me was the graphic images of abortion---the process and the results.
I could never be an abortion doctor, although I feel unqualified to condemn them. All I can say is that the further along a pregnancy proceeds, the more tragic it is when a potential human being is either spontaneously or voluntarily aborted.
Now, here is a question that cannot be avoided: when you abort a fetus that nature has declared healthy, what are the ethical consequences of such and act? it seems obvious, of course, that the ethical consequences become more significant the further the fetus develops. But where do we draw the dividing line?
God only knows.
I guess my only solution to the problem is that society should provide support for women so they can avoid unwanted pregnancies, and we should provide them with every possible choice before they feel compelled to consider abortion. But the choice is ultimately with them. No man can ever truly understand the difficulties of women's choices.
I suppose what I am trying to say is: I was always a rubber-stamp, pro-choice person before I saw this movie. Now I can no longer see abortion as a simple "procedure". Abortion at any point in a pregnancy is now something deeply troubling to me. And the further along the pregnancy proceeds, the more troubling the matter becomes.
I don't know the answer. But this movie at least has me asking the right questions. Abortion is a tragedy, no matter how you look at it.
God help women who are faced with this terrible decision. And God forgive those who make the wrong decision, for only God knows how difficult the choices are that women must make. Men will never know.
If you are brave and open-minded, I recommend that you watch this film, no matter which side of the abortion issue you fall on. But be warned, it's a hard film to watch.
The reason I gave this movie four stars is two-fold:
1) I would have given it 5 stars if it hadn't portrayed pro-lifers as mostly extremist, because I know that isn't the case. So I can't say the movie was as fair as it could have been.
2) Being a pro-choice person, this movie shook me and made me see the tragic reality of abortion for the first time. So I can't deny the effect it had on me.
If the film had been more perfectly balanced between pro and con, I would have given it 5 stars. I think it was *almost* perfectly balanced, but not quite. It seemed a little more inclined to the pro-choice side, so I subtracted a star, in spite of the fact that I have always considered myself pro-choice. I wouldn't want to watch it again, because it's so graphic, but I think I understand the issue of abortion far more clearly than I did before. But I almost wish I didn't know. I almost wish I could go back to thinking that abortion is a cut-and-dried issue than most males (other than the fathers of a given pregnancy) don't have the right to an opinion on.
But having said that, I have far more respect for women than I have ever had before. Men are big babies, in many ways, compared to women. The toughest male warrior who ever lived will never understand the sufferings women go through. If they could, they would fall to their knees weeping and hate themselves for all they did to add to the suffering of women and children down through history with their absurd and childish wars."