"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....

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...

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 a non-propagandist way and to create a kind of war of words."

The film has had antiabortion activists worried because of the film's detailed discussion of antiabortion terrorism, and interviews with convicted murderers Paul Hill and Michael Griffin. As I wrote earlier this year:

Kaye's film forces us to contend with the domestic terrorism that has marked the antiabortion movement for a generation.

ABCNews.com has a detailed story on reactions to the film.    

"I'm confused about the whole thing," [director Tony] Kaye told ABCNews.com. "If you gave me a piece of paper with a pro-life and a pro-choice box, without thought I'd pick the pro-choice box. I think a woman should be able to choose exactly what she does with her [body]. But I still think there's a person being killed, and that's not good."

Audience members' reactions were equally mixed. Many told ABCNEWS.com that they thought the film was a balanced look at the issue, while others insisted it was largely "anti-abortionist" and some even said it was "very liberal."

Wanda Franz of the National Right to Life Committee, who had not seen the film, had understandably bland and non-committal quotes in the ABC piece. Not so the prochoice voice:

"This was not a balanced portrayal of the issue," said Carol King, former National Organization for Women board member and abortion-rights activist, who has seen the documentary. "One of the things that has upset me more than anything else is the [comparison] of the anti-choice extremists to pro-choice activists. I have never encouraged in any way to kill people with whom I disagree."  ...

King added that she thought Kaye used graphic images for "superficial purposes" and "shock value." The number of activists on either side of the abortion debate has remained the same over more than 30 years, according to King, who said she didn't think this movie was going to change that.

The images, which King told ABCNEWS.com left her "angered" and "insulted," are commonly used by anti-abortion activists during protests.

From the prolife side, a New York magazine reviewer agrees that the symbolism of the dead fetus is powerful, he argues, unbeatable.  But, based on reading press reports, Tom Hoopes, executive editor of the National Catholic Register, (and who has not seen the film) says he smells a rat. His collumn at The National Review, is titled: "Lake of Bias:  No choice but pro-choice."

He quotes Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz:

"Everybody is right when it comes to the issue of abortion," he says in the film. "In the end human beings have to decide. In the end each of us has to decide using whatever resources we have available to us: religion, our mind, our sense of what is right and wrong in society."

In other words, the grand conclusion of this ground-breaking non-propagandist documentary is: Believe whatever you want to believe, but whatever you believe, you had better be "pro-choice."

That may be Dershowitz's view, but it is not (in my view) Tony Kaye's view.  

In anycase, we have so far seen people well-within both the prochoice and antichoice camps argue that the film slants their way or slants the other way.

It is the stuff of which great debates are made.

Personally, I think the signficance of the film lies elsewhere -- it is a work of art more than it is journalism. It is intended to stimulate people's thinking on this. I suspect that people's reactions are exactly what interests Kaye. I read that he was outside of one theater filming people's reactions recently.

There are undoubtedly many who do not want to discuss Lake of Fire at all. My argument is that the public discussion is going to happen anyway. It matters less which side benefits most in the film itself, and matters a lot more how each side develops considered and effective responses to the film and to public reaction -- whatever that turns out to be.

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