This is a very hard review to write, because this is a very hard movie to watch. There's so many different ways to take it, and unfortunately it forces you to take it a particular way even if you don't want to.
Punishment Park is about extremes, rightists versus leftists and the destruction inherent. Two camps of protesters are put together, the violent and the nonviolent, and both are punished together by being forced to trek 50+ miles through Death Valley in the middle of summer without water... if they fail, they die. If they succeed... well...
The thing is that this movie is hateful. It's utterly predictable, but not in that way where it's condescending or stupidly written, but in that terrible way where you know what's going to happen and don't want to see it, but do. It's entirely a "necessary" product, one that HAD to have been made during the era it was, and unfortunately one that HAS to exist, even if it's simply a terrible experience.
What angers me so much about it is that it proves itself. The way it's a pseudo-documentary and it's vastly leftist politics makes it almost insulting, makes you want to just ignore it as the ranting of a zealot. If the people are in the desert, for instance, with a camera crew nearby, why aren't they asking the camera crew for water? And once they start to get desperate, how come they never attack the camera crew? Major difficulty in a movie where the director speaks.
Besides, the alien looking extreme rightists in this movie are almost laughably caricaturistic, making one really feel preached to. This movie seems to beg us to not believe it, to feel incredulous that such levels exist.
Yet the movie "exists" as it "actually happened" because of people's treatment of it. It was banned in England, pretty much not allowed release in America, and got very little release in very little places. The credits roll, and the director/narrator points out that at least one of his crew was subsequently imprisoned. The treatment of this movie by those in power profoundly reinforces its themes, which is terrible because its themes shouldn't exist.
And then I'd love to say that this film should now be forgotten considering the by-gone era, but noooooo!! Current political landscapes and people's readiness to turn Iraq into another Vietnam either by making poor decisions or repeating said fact with slogans on picket signs makes this movie come back to the forefront again, a painful Big Brother, a terrible paean to the fear and hatred that consumed many during that era which people seem eager to reclaim in this era. Basically, it angers me to no end that this had to exist, it angers me more that it's still palpible, but not because of the movie itself but what it represents.
--PolarisDiB
Punishment Park is about extremes, rightists versus leftists and the destruction inherent. Two camps of protesters are put together, the violent and the nonviolent, and both are punished together by being forced to trek 50+ miles through Death Valley in the middle of summer without water... if they fail, they die. If they succeed... well...
The thing is that this movie is hateful. It's utterly predictable, but not in that way where it's condescending or stupidly written, but in that terrible way where you know what's going to happen and don't want to see it, but do. It's entirely a "necessary" product, one that HAD to have been made during the era it was, and unfortunately one that HAS to exist, even if it's simply a terrible experience.
What angers me so much about it is that it proves itself. The way it's a pseudo-documentary and it's vastly leftist politics makes it almost insulting, makes you want to just ignore it as the ranting of a zealot. If the people are in the desert, for instance, with a camera crew nearby, why aren't they asking the camera crew for water? And once they start to get desperate, how come they never attack the camera crew? Major difficulty in a movie where the director speaks.
Besides, the alien looking extreme rightists in this movie are almost laughably caricaturistic, making one really feel preached to. This movie seems to beg us to not believe it, to feel incredulous that such levels exist.
Yet the movie "exists" as it "actually happened" because of people's treatment of it. It was banned in England, pretty much not allowed release in America, and got very little release in very little places. The credits roll, and the director/narrator points out that at least one of his crew was subsequently imprisoned. The treatment of this movie by those in power profoundly reinforces its themes, which is terrible because its themes shouldn't exist.
And then I'd love to say that this film should now be forgotten considering the by-gone era, but noooooo!! Current political landscapes and people's readiness to turn Iraq into another Vietnam either by making poor decisions or repeating said fact with slogans on picket signs makes this movie come back to the forefront again, a painful Big Brother, a terrible paean to the fear and hatred that consumed many during that era which people seem eager to reclaim in this era. Basically, it angers me to no end that this had to exist, it angers me more that it's still palpible, but not because of the movie itself but what it represents.
--PolarisDiB