Do you know what a snatch is?

The fact that I find it mildly difficult discussing Peter Watkins' Punishment Park without bringing up my personal political opinions is a testament to how effective it is as a crash-course in radical leftist rhetoric.

Having said that, I must admit to having found the film fairly tedious. Good, but not mindblowing.

It's incredibly dated, something which acts both positively and negatively.

Positively because it serves as a perfect snapshot of America in 1970, when peaceful protesters had rapidly turned into militants, feeling that their initial approach had failed. The wearied reactions of Punishment Park's victims, dehydrated and relentlessly chased by the police, reflect the feelings of counterculture American youth at the time. Peace had failed them, and it quickly felt like violence was failing them as well. Wondering whether or not it's worth chasing the flag against the police pursuit mirrors the hangover of the summer of love.



Negatively because the film is permanently stuck in its era. The outdated speech, the clothing, the arguments, the political background. Regardless of whether or not the cores of the political issues raised by Punishment Park are still problematic today, so much of the film is so 1970, that it's impossible to say this is something that still feels "fresh" 40 years later. This is a film with essentially no humor, but there were more than a few times when I had to stifle a chuckle due to how outdated some of the dialogue is.

Everything about the film is geared towards its purpose of presenting a radical leftist view of American society in 1970. There's zero subtlety (or we can say it's "unapologetic about its politics"). This isn't hard to determine when the first shot is a zoom-in of the US flag flying backwards. While admirable, I do tend to get bored when films are as one-sided as this. The scenes following the actual prisoners in the desert quickly became more interesting than the tribunal interviews. Every question asked, whether by the fascist administration or the film crew are worded to provoke a leftist response. And not a single person in this pseudo-documentary is a poor orator. Every answer is flawless. This kind of perfection, however rough the language or passionate the speech, gets pretty dull and repetitive.

What struck me most about Punishment Park, in terms of things I liked, was its setting. It's a present day (back then, anyway) dystopia. Not a dark, decrepit undisclosed future with a vague fascist leader, but the sunny deserts of California where absolutely nothing is modernized and Nixon is clearly responsible. This is where I can understand Punishment Park being underrated in terms of its controversy and forward-thinking. The violence isn't graphic, but the explicit depiction of cops as merciless killers against civilians is also effectively jarring, even if the idea behind it ("pigs" is used nonstop by the characters) is nothing new.



It's getting a bit dull to write this, probably because I wasn't affected by Punishment Park as I'd liked to have been. The problems and arguments brought up are still relevant today, but besides the points I mentioned, I don't think the film is nearly as strong today as it was 40 years ago.

On a small note, are there other places in the US nearly as isolating and stunning as the California salt flats? Eeesh.