Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I've dragged some ass post Sundance. I've been attending the Santa Barbara Film Festival and seeing a decent amount of flicks, but any free time I've had I spent either catching up on Sundance reports or sleeping or finding old New Zealand friends on MySpace (hi Julia). You know, important things.

So, I've got a fair amount of guilt about dodging the SBIFF coverage, but I'm here to shovel some coal and get the review train rolling. And what a way to start.

By far, my favorite film I've seen at the Santa Barbara Film Festival is Tony Kaye's epic documentary, LAKE OF FIRE. And it's one that by all means could have not worked out for me.

One, it's an abortion documentary. Two, it's a three hour long abortion documentary. Three, it's a three hour long black and white abortion documentary.

However, I was engrossed the whole time, the documentary flying by. This is helped by Tony Kaye's stance. He is completely neutral the whole time, showing both sides in extremely good light and pathetically bad light.

Our first glimpses of the pro-choice camp are them protesting the pro-life protesters at an abortion clinic and they are so damn annoying. They act like 5 year olds, mimicking the leader of the pro-life crowd. Yet the pro-life crowd has ten-fold more crazy people and flat out cold-blooded murderers in their ranks, including one amazingly entertaining, yet incredibly frightening preacher that recounts literal stories (in his mind) of women who got abortions carrying out the fresh fetus from the abortion clinic, parading it in front of the anti-abortion protesters, pulling out a grill, throwing the fetus on that grill, cooking it and eating it in front of the shocked anti-abortionists.

My own personal politics and views were challenged, strengthened and every step in-between.

There's some harsh shit in this movie, graphic, yet sterile, footage of the abortion process, from consultation to execution of the procedure. There are some flat out revolting shots of the doctors sifting through the contents of the vacuum, making sure there aren't any pieces left in the mother's womb. The little baby parts, recognizable hands, feet, faces...

I can see the religious right getting behind this movie and using it as a tool to gain support, but I can also see the pro-choice movement using it for those exact same purposes. For every graphic shot of a doctor measuring a severed baby's foot, there's footage or stills of a murdered doctor and the complete lack of disapproval by the pro-life movement. In fact, not just the lack of disapproval, but a definite approval of their murders and the support of others in the future doing the same.

The debate in all its forms is shown. The best speaker, by far, is Noam Chomsky, famous author and linguist. He dissects both sides succinctly and intelligently describes the conundrum of this argument. Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. You'd think that is just non-committal BS, but he goes into great detail on how that is not only possible, but you'll find it hard to disagree with him at all.

The film is amazing, eye-opening, heart-wrenching, funny, scary, sad... It is the end all be all of the debate, every single issue covered. You might not change your mind at the end of this movie, but you'll have a broader understanding of the argument.

I know Tony Kaye still considers this a work in progress, but I think it's as powerful as it can ever be. Roger Durling, head honcho of the Santa Barbara Fest, seemed to believe ThinkFilm was going to release the movie, but that hasn't been confirmed yet. If released, it'll cause quite the stir, but as I said before I don't think the uproar is going to be as crazy as some people think. I firmly believe both sides of the argument will embrace this movie. Whenever it is released.

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com