Set during the Nixon administration, Punishment Park depicts a dystopian parallel reality in which detained political dissidents face an obscene decision. After being convicted of their “crimes” in a sham court proceeding, they are offered the choice between life in prison or three days in “Punishment Park,” a desert landscape where armed guards pursue them on foot as they race toward an American flag miles away on the dusty horizon. Those who can reach the flag before they are captured are promised release; those who are caught and refuse to comply with their captors’ demands are shot and killed. Peter Watkins’s staggering documentary-style drama moves across a barren landscape. Camera crews embed with the convicted men and women—and the armed forces chasing them—to expose these miscarriages of justice and their violent results. The film provokes us to consider the machinery of power and reflect on just how imaginary this imagined state is. ST

Q&A following screening