Review of Punishment Park (1971) by Rhanda D — 26 Apr 2009

You're probably not going to "enjoy" this film; it's just not built that way. Peter Watkins' dim view of a somewhat futuristic American society (futuristic for 1970, anyway) is designed to raise more questions than it answers.

The characters are broadly drawn, the dialogue is improvised and frustratingly shallow at points and the audience is given very few people it cares to identify with. Still, the inherent metaphors and messages in "Punishment Park" are every bit as relevant today as they were in the tumultuous Vietnam era.

I found this one to be quite powerful, and I'm no big fan of "hippies." It is absurdly, terrifyingly easy to draw parallels between the actions in this film and current events happening today, and the hopelessness and extreme viewpoints displayed by both the "right" and "left" sides are perhaps as apt now as they were in the early 1970s.

Beautifully, starkly filmed and brimming with real, tense emotion, "Punishment Park" is one of the most subversive films I've ever seen, and that's a good thing.