Tony Kaye's grueling two-and-a-half-hour documentary Lake of Fire opens with anti-abortion activist and former Ku Klux Klan member John Burt explaining that the lake in question is the place where people who've had abortions (and abortionists and, for that matter, those of us who haven't been saved) will writhe and burn for eternity. He is, of course, unhinged, and fueled by hatred rather than love of innocent souls. But hate is a great motivator, and Burt has been a big influence on people like Michael Griffin and Paul Hill, who added two doctors to that lake's population.

Kaye has said he wants Lake of Fire to be the film on the issue of abortion-the one that both camps will watch and say, "Okay, that's fair," even if they still leave wanting to strangle the people on the other side.

The New York Times reviewer is clearly discomfitted by, among other things, the graphic nature of the film, and she wishes that there were more women cast as experts. (So do I.) And she emphasizes some things that her male colleagues do not.

Mr. Kaye began shooting material for "Lake of Fire" (the title refers to hell) in the early 1990s, a process that consumed an uncommonly long 16 years. He has stated that he was interested in making a "socially conscious" dramatic film, but decided to make a documentary that would represent the issue in its complexity, despite knowing nothing about the form. His ignorance has its dividends. Shot primarily in sumptuous, often disquietingly beautiful 35-millimeter film, "Lake of Fire" doesn't look anything like most American documentaries.

... an array of mostly male journalists, activists, ministers, lawyers and academics, including the philosopher Peter Singer  and the writer Nat Hentoff, ... lay out the arguments and scan the terrain. Some sound rational, coolly dispassionate; others smile and spew. A few of the more vivid characters, specifically religious extremists who believe that America should be a Christian nation and that abortion providers should be executed alongside homosexuals, adulterers and blasphemers, are, well, something else. Intentionally or not, Mr. Kaye has made a documentary that vividly delineates how religious-fundamentalist terrorists take root in a country, slide around the law and gain legitimacy (martyrdom), and how those who profess to love God can justify murder.

One lesson of "Lake of Fire" is the galvanizing power of the visual image. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes pictures are not enough. Although the film doesn't identify her, the dead woman in the photograph that Mr. Kaye shows us late in the film is Gerri Santoro. In 1964, when abortion was not yet a constitutional right, she and a male lover checked into a Connecticut motel room, where he tried to perform an abortion. She had become pregnant and feared that her estranged husband, who beat her and their children, would find out. Something went wrong, and the lover fled. Ms. Santoro died, smeared in blood, defeated, naked and alone. Before she was a symbol, she was a person.

Bloomberg talks to the film maker.

Kaye, wearing a navy-blue sweater, checked shirt and gray pants, looked more like a college professor than an eccentric filmmaker. Though the U.K. native has lived in the U.S. since 1990 -- he resides in Los Angeles with his pregnant wife, Yan- Lin, and their 17-month-old daughter -- he retains his British accent and speaks with a slight stutter.

Warner: Abortion is such an emotional issue. Why make a documentary about it?

Kaye: I tried to write a story about abortion, but I couldn't do the subject justice. Then I decided to make a documentary. I was inspired by the work of people like Errol Morris, Michael Moore and Frederick Wiseman.

Warner: The film includes interviews with those who think abortion is murder, as well as those who say it's a fundamental right. Is there any middle ground?

Kaye: My concept was to make a film that was not propagandist in any way. It was all about the confusion. Everybody on both sides thinks they're 100 percent right, which is why there is such a huge argument.

Warner: What is your personal opinion on abortion?

Kaye: I don't really have an opinion, other than you should follow the law. As a filmmaker, I'm sort of like an empty vessel. I just let things come through me, and they end up however they end up.

Warner: Why did it take so long to finish the movie?

Kaye: Making any film is difficult, but making a film about an issue that's an infinite sea of ideas and text and images is much, much harder. ``Lake of Fire'' is a physically demanding film to watch. I'd say it's best to see this film at 11 in the morning.

The Newark Star-Ledger is grumpily uncomfortable with it.

The New York Sun is impressed:

Even as the talking heads begin to jar your senses, though, "Lake of Fire" is an incredibly valuable act of filmmaking. Mr. Kaye insists on doing things that network news divisions are too frightened to even attempt, now that they've all been sold out to corporate profit margins and the shallow glimmer of "infotainment." This camera flinches at nothing. His contemporaries better take note.

[Slightly adapted from Talk to Action]