As part of the BFI’s Art of Action season, film historian Craig Ian Mann presents Run for Your Life, three “chase” films that illustrate the complex narrative themes of action cinema.
Directed in mockumentary style by celebrated British filmmaker Peter Watkins (The War Game), Punishment Park follows a group of students – branded “political dissidents” in an alternate version of Richard Nixon’s America – who are being punished for their supposed crimes with a three-day stay in “Punishment Park.”
The detainees, rather than accept a lengthy jail sentence, gamble their freedom on an attempt to reach an American flag – on foot and without water – in the searing heat of the California desert. As they attempt to make it to their goal, they are relentlessly hunted by a squad of heavily armed police officers and National Guardsmen.
A powerful piece of political cinema that reworks the central conceit of The Most Dangerous Game for the era of Vietnam, the counterculture, and the battle for civil rights, Punishment Park is a clear example of how the “human hunting” theme has been used to voice protest against the establishment – and remains just as relevant today as it was in 1971.
