Punishment Park

Call it art imitating life, but one thing is for sure: with the Bush administration arguing that torture is basically okay and pushing for renewal of the Patriot Act, Oscar-winning British director Peter Watkins' Punishment Park remains chillingly relevant 35 years after it was made. The film, which might variously be labeled a pseudo-documentary, outright propaganda, or maybe just a paranoid fantasy, is set in the early '70s, a time in which the U.S. government invokes the McCarran Act (which is a real piece of legislation, though modified here) to detain (without bail, evidence, or anything resembling a fair trial) anyone who "probably will engage in certain future acts of sabotage." After undergoing perfunctory "tribunals" whose outcomes are never in doubt, the detainees in question, most of them '60s radicals deeply suspicious of the government and especially opposed to the Vietnam War, are offered a choice between long prison sentences or three days in "Punishment Park," a grim stretch of the Southern California desert that makes Death Valley look like the Malibu coast. Although the detainees have been promised they'll be set free once they reach an American flag planted many miles away, the bad guys have no intention of fulfilling their promise, and there are plenty of National Guardsmen, cops, and other law enforcement types around to make sure of it. But while Watkins clearly sympathizes with the prisoners (as does the fictional film crew on hand to document the proceedings), no one emerges smelling like a rose. Both sides engage in unbearably shrill hectoring and sloganeering; the folks running the tribunals are all right-wing jerks; and the young radicals are mostly callow stereotypes, spouting empty-headed rhetoric and exchanging insults with their captors. Still, regardless of one's particular point of view, Punishment Park is never anything less than provocative. DVD extras include half-hour intro by Watkins, an audio commentary by film scholar Dr. Joseph A. Gomez, an 18-minute short film by Watkins, and a 24-page booklet. A strong optional purchase. (S. Graham)