Lake of Fire

A two-and-a-half-hour, black-and-white documentary on abortion by the director of "American History X." In short, not a date movie. This has been hailed as an even-handed look at the so-called hot-button issue, and indeed it spends equal time talking to pro-life and pro-choice people. But I think the film takes a rather strong pro-choice stance, since the only pro-life people we see are complete idiots. One such idiot foresees "truck bombs of abortion conventions" and surface-to-air missiles against abortion clinics. Conventions? (A quick Google search revealed only 286 hits for "abortion convention," virtually all referring to anti-abortion conventions.) There's another preacher who thinks California has "Lift Up Your Dress Week" where people are forced to choose whether they're a homosexual or heterosexual. (A Google search revealed 4 hits for "Lift Up Your Dress Week," all 4 from reviews of this film.) And myriad other acerbic, pestiferous, illiterate idiots.

I know there are intelligent, articulate pro-life people out there, but they're not in this film. (Not that we don't see idiots in the pro-choice camp as well.) I also noticed that most of the people who opine about the right thing to do are men. Whether that's the filmmaker's choice or just who speaks about it publicly the most, I'm not sure; maybe a little of both.

"Lake of Fire" shows an actual abortion procedure and graphic clips from anti-abortion films. And these are the strongest arguments against abortion. They're necessary, though, because, as I mentioned, apparently there were no intelligent people who could speak out against it. I was also struck when one proponent of abortion rights claimed when they were illegal, botched abortions were the highest cause of death of women ages 15-45, higher than heart attacks and car accidents. Not sure if that's true, but if it is, damn. I found the most poignant part to be towards the end with Stacey, a woman who the film follows through the abortion process, the interviews where she talked about being abused, the final interview to make sure it's the right choice, the actual procedure, and her talking about it afterwards when she breaks down crying, saying "I know I made the right decision, but it's still not easy. It's more in my heart than in my stomach now." It puts a human face on the practical decision involved and is more thought-provoking than any of the statements by the talking heads who are interviewed. However, even this sequence was hampered by the heavy-handed string music the director employed way too often. Note to the director: when someone is crying after getting an abortion, we don't need to hear music to understand this is supposed to be sad.

Let me conclude by saying I'm against even-handedness. Especially in this political season, it's common to hear seemingly conciliatory people dodge taking a stand by claiming, "Well, there are extremists on both sides." True, but it's naive to not realize the extremists on one side are usually right. It's the middle-of-the-road people who ruin everything. So let's not praise someone for being even-handed; especially not when the person is in fact making a strong point. I'm out.