PULP & THE POLITICAL: Peter Watkins' PUNISHMENT PARK (dir by Peter Watkins, 88mns, USA/UK)

The beauty and frustration of cinema is that there will always be moviemakers, bodies of work, movies you haven't yet discovered or gotten to.

Many times, you'll get to them. And they are revelations. Other times, you never fill in the gaps. Life is so short. 

This writer had never heard of British political moviemaker Peter Watkins until a friend recommended his work. At least this is one moviemaker now discovered.

Watkins' five decade career began with fascinating fictional documentaries in the 1960's and extended into the 21st century with up to 14+ hour documentaries and features. 

Watkins' PUNISHMENT PARK, made in California and released in 1971, is a dystopian alternative reality fictional feature disguised as a documentary. A US government program "grants" political dissidents and prisoners the opportunity to try to run 57 miles through a California desert to get to an American flag while police and the National Guard pursue them to arrest them as training. If the contestants make it to the flag, they get their freedom and their prison sentences waived. If they get caught, supposedly they just get their prison sentences. However, the way the game is described to the prisoners is not how the game is played in reality.

Cross cutting between sham trials and the “contest”, PUNISHMENT PARK plays like THE RUNNING MAN meets MEDIUM COOL…

The movie has an ingenuous structure. Semi-improvised court tribunal hearings are intercut with prisoners trying to make their way to the flag. The conceit is that a British documentary crew has been allowed to film both the tribunals and the competition for "transparency" for a national audience. The prisoners, the judges, the police officers, and the national guard are all interviewed at the same time we cross cut to the "game" and the "trials". 

What's most impressive is how Watkins communicates controversial (by design) key political ideas without feeling dogmatic. You may disagree with his ideas or conclusions. But you can't accuse him of being boring or uncinematic. 

The movie is very much a product of the Nixon and Vietnam era. And it pits the establishment who believe Vietnam is a justified even necessary war against the protestors who made up the hippies, movement organizers, college students.

At the same time, Watkins propels everything forward with a pulpy ticking clock: will the prisoners be able to navigate the course and get to the flag? Is the game rigged? Do they even have a chance? 

The cross cutting creates a dynamic and electric pace that allows for both an expression of ideas and the key fundamental of many good movies: an engaging story. This keeps the movie from feeling like a diatribe or rant or polemic. In fact, it plays as a kind of low budget high concept RUNNING MAN. 

PUNISHMENT PARK touches on so many ideas in its short 90+ minute runtime: how a democracy that says it supports a constitution and free speech is consciously or unconsciously really moving to a police state that yearns for something more authoritarian. How uncomfortable (to the establishment) political viewpoints like pacifism, black militancy, women's liberation, communism/socialism are often vilified rather than honestly wrestled with. 

Scenes of political dissients and law enforcement both equally uncomfortable with what they’re being asked to do hit close to the bone in 2025…

This is definitely a movie made by someone whose politics and sympathies are with the prisoners. And so it's no surprise that when the movie was released, it infuriated many who felt the representations of the police and national guard in the movie were biased and unfair from the beginning.

And that's a fair critique. Another critique is the flawed premise that a British documentary crew can have righteous indignation over American hypocrisy when its own country has a hundreds of years history of colonialism, oppression, slavery, class warfare itself.

But what's interesting is how Watkins, within his own political goals and biases, nevertheless seems to get powerful, truthful performances from all the actors across the entire political spectrum to create a compelling truthfulness.

The movie grows more unsettling with the passage of time. What might have played as almost science fiction satirical heightened social critique in 1971 now plays as an all too plausible near future if one political side is allowed to fully dominate and define the terms of debate.

And this may be where PUNISHMENT PARK is most prescient. As one prisoner character wonders aloud, do you even have a chance when one side so totally controls all the rules of the game?

Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club