Sunday April 5th 2015, Movie Night: Punishment Park (Peter Watkins, 1971, 88 min.). In English with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.
Punishment Park is a pseudo-documentary, purporting to be a film crews’s news coverage of the team of soldiers escorting a group of hippies, draft dodgers, and anti-establishment types across the desert in a type of capture the flag game.
Although the film itself is fictional, many of the elements found within are metaphors of social and political events of the time, such as the trial of the Chicago Seven, the Kent State shootings, police brutality, and political polarisation.
The soldiers vow not to interfere with the rebels’ progress and merely shepherd them along to their destination. At that point, having obtained their goal, they will be released. The film crew’s coverage is meant to insure that the military’s intentions are honorable. As the representatives of the 60’s counter-culture get nearer to passing this arbitrary test, the soldiers become increasingly hostile, attempting to force the hippies out of their pacifist behavior. A lot of this film appears improvised and in several scene real tempers seem to flare as some of the “acting” got overaggressive. This is a interesting exercise in situational ethics. The cinema-veritie style, hand-held camera, and ambiguous demands of the director – would the actors be able to maintain their roles given the hazing they were taking – pushed some to the brink. The cast’s emotions are clearly on the surface. Unfortunately this film has gone completely underground and is next to impossible to find. It would offer a captivating document of the distrust that existed between soldiers willfully serving in the military and those persons who opposed the war peacefully.
Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Doors open at 8pm, film begins at 9pm, free entrance. You want to play a movie, let us know: joe [at] squat [dot] net
