Desiring Machine

I just recently watch Tony Kaye’s film Lake of Fire. The film is an intensely dramatic documentary on the abortion issue in America. Coming in at 2 1/2 hours long it is an epic endurance just to watch this film. Not for the faint of heart, but absolutely critical no matter which side of the issue you stand on. The film is remarkable for its graphic nature, stunning and explicit coverage of the actual abortion procedure, vaginas, blood, and fetuses. I would advocate that every high schooler see this film because of what it has to offer to the debate, but the graphic nature of the film might be beyond the pale of what even the most liberal school district could allow in their school in this political climate.

However, I think there is something very important going on here. This film has caused me to actually think about the abortion issue more intensely than I have for years. I think the film is quite fair in that it provides ample opportunity to many opposing sides to make their case about the issue. The edge in the film comes from its relentless and uncanny ability to get down to the specifics of the issue in intimate details. There is no sheltering of perspectives. All sides are presented, and all sides are left to stand on the merits of their point of view. This film is uncharacteristically honest and brutal and violent. But the violence is palpable and important. The violence is didactic and emotional. There is no turing away from real bodies and real fetuses. Vivid and graphic depictions of murdered abortion doctors, maimed healthcare workers, and bloody fetal body parts all take their turn moving across the screen in intense black and white imagery. The choice of presenting of the film in black and white underlies the brilliance of the film. It is gritty and gripping. The high contrast black and white imagery works on many levels as a metaphor for how “black and white” or rather polarized the abortion issue has become. However, by examining the extremes of the issue in brutally honest terms the film provides a much needed integrity to any debate about the issue. The contrasts and the tone of the film compels the viewer to find the grey and the boundaries and the meaning and ethics surrounding the debate. The are parts of the movie that are quite uncomfortable to experience (murder, zealotry, gore, trauma, hypocrisy) but by slogging through the viewer can’t escape authentically engaging the abortion issue. A must see film even if we would much rather shy away from the ugliness. For as Nietzsche once said:

sacrifice everything desirable for the sake of the truth, for the sake of every truth, even the simple, bitter, hateful, repellent, unchristian, immoral truth. . . . For there are such truths.

Here is the trailer.