Review of Punishment Park (1971) by M. K — 09 Jan 2008

Quite possibly the most disturbing and realistic faux-documentary ever made, Punishment Park immediately establishes itself within the first 10 minutes as a chilling work of genius; the whole film, right from the start, feels so horrifyingly real, helped considerably by the fact that all the left wing radicals in the film are played by actual left wing radicals, and the oppressive cops and right wingers are all played by people not too far off from their characters.

Switching between a group of "subversives" being subjected to the death race of the title, and another group being grilled at a tribunal by a bunch of right wing scumbags, the film is brilliantly edited, impeccably acted by the "cast", and feels terribly, disturbingly relevant today. It does feel dated in many ways by the cultural landscape of the time - references to Vietnam, the draft, and Kent State abound - but it doesn't take much imagination to substitute more modern developments, and you immediately have a scary picture of some aspects of our current political culture. The tribunal scenes, where dim old patrio-fascists - all white men, except for a woman who is a representative of a Focus on the Family-type organization and is described as a "homemaker" - condemn hippies to death or prison for threatening to instigate change in the government via revolution, are both despairingly realistic and darkly funny. The accused spout slogans and do their best to argue against their oppressors, who either shout them down or have them gagged. Meanwhile, out in the punishment park, the cops and National Guardsmen who are being "trained" on the course show themselves to be self-righteous good ol' boys who like the power a rifle gives them, and then try and justify their governmentally-sanctioned sadism by saying "we're just doing what the taxpayers pay us to do".

Documenting all of this is a British camera crew, the narrator of which is played by the director himself. As the prisoners in the park try to reach the flag without being killed by the 'pigs', and the prisoners at the tribunal rail in vain against the establishment (the 'homemaker', humorously, accuses every prisoner on trial of being 'immoral' and a 'threat to my children!'), the film becomes increasingly grim and brutal, and director Peter Watkins' editing brilliantly undercuts the characters' dialogue with contradictory news reports, or quickly cuts to and away from a character saying something that reveals their monstrosity or ignorance. So stunning is his work here, that I am now inspired to hunt down everything in his filmography. The hand-held cinematography is accomplished, and the score is a simple, menacing suite of atonal, reverberating metallic percussion. Punishment Park is a difficult film to analyze, due to its striking complexity and chilling realism, and it can make for difficult viewing - but it is a brilliantly made, captivating film that is perhaps even more chilling today than it was over thirty years ago.