Notorious director Tony Kaye, the helmer of cult hit AMERICAN HISTORY X, returns to the scene after nearly ten years. Putting his diva-like behavior behind him, Kaye finally finishes his long-in-the-works documentary about the abortion debate in the U.S. Sometimes graphic and often moving, this somber look at the hot button issue shows people on either extremes of the fight, trying to find some middle ground.
Filmed on and off for 18 years, Kaye captures a wide range of advocates on both sides. Hauntingly, one of those advocates is anti-abortion crusader Paul Hill. At one protest, Hill is asked who else besides abortionists should be executed and he says any blasphemer who simply says, "God damn." We meet Hill as he champions an assassin of a clinic doctor, calling the killer a martyr. Later Hill will follow suit and murder in the name of God himself.
Atheist libertarian writer Nat Hentoff is the most levelheaded on the pro-life side. He simply believes that life begins at conception and human life should be protected. One of the more contradictory pro-life supporters is Father Westlin. He personally counters a typical pro-choice argument against pro-lifers by taking in unwanted children and abandoned pregnant women, but then undermines his credibility by feverishly ranting about clinic workers being Satanists who will put a fetus on a spit and roast it in front of you. One of the big conversions from pro-choice to pro-life is Norma McCorvey — the anonymous Jane Roe in "Roe vs. Wade," which legalized abortion in the U.S. Once a clinic worker, she was threatened verbally and physically for years, becoming a prisoner in her home. Then a ministry opened up next to the clinic and she found the place peaceful, making her grinning pastor Flip Benham very proud. The true clincher for her was seeing the remains of the fetuses at the clinic. And Kaye blindsides us with what she might have seen — a moment that will be nauseating and unwatchable for many viewers. A doctor sifts through a mass of tissue in a pan finding a clear head, hands and feet to make sure the fetus is completely aborted.
On the pro-choice side, we hear levelheaded arguments about relativism from scholars like Noam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz. Frances Kissling is the leader of Catholics for Free Choice, showing that some people have reconciled their faith with the procedure. Survivors of clinic bombings question how one talks to a person willing to kill for their side. A nameless woman is chronicled as she goes for an abortion and a clinic worker tells her that a miscarriage happens when your body isn't ready for a pregnancy and an abortion happens when the rest of you isn't ready. Pro-choicers reveal that some of the most adamant pro-life activists are members of white supremacist groups. Before "Roe vs. Wade," the leading cause of death for young women was complications of botched abortions. While the film features fewer extremists on the pro-choice side, many of the pro-choice protestors scream obscenities at the pro-life protestors when they confront each other. The level of hostility is ratcheted up so high that there is no longer room for a grey area.
Shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Documentary, this lightning rod of a film may have been too touchy for many to embrace for the Big Night. Either side could read it as supporting the opposing viewpoint. The black and white cinematography, which is necessary to make the gory parts bearable, alludes to a black and white issue, but Kaye himself never shows his hand on the debate. The film presents a cyclical argument, giving valid points on both sides, but in the end most viewers will leave believing what they believed going in. Harvard law professor Dershowitz tells a Jewish fable that seems to cut to the core of the film's stance. A rabbi intervenes in a dispute between a husband and a wife. Upon hearing the man's version, the rabbi says, "You're right." After hearing the woman's story, he says, "You're right." Then a student asks, "But how can they both be right?" to which the rabbi replies, "You're right."
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
