Review of Punishment Park (1971) by Hans L — 19 Jul 2008

Before the Patriot Act and department for Homeland Security legitimized north American fascism Peter Watkins (also responsible for the BBC film The War Game) explored the very same ideas and their consequences almost forty years ago.

It's a narrative film shot to look and feel like a documentary as it alternates between the military tribunal of a group 1960's radicals (tried for crimes they have not actually committed- merely their political creed) and their sentence in the eponymous title for their perceived transgressions against US hegemony.

A film of rare formal and thematic maturity and complexity. Watkins deserves to be uttered in the same breath as Godard and Rocha.