Run For Your Life: Punishment Park 15

From the archive

This film was last shown on 8 December 2024

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.

This screening will be introduced by strand curator Craig Ian Mann.

Presented as part of the UK-wide BFI Art of Action season and curated by film historian and writer Craig Ian Mann, Run for Your Life explores action narratives in which human beings are hunted for sport. Each screening in this strand highlights the rich social, cultural and political commentary that can be found in action cinema – and particularly in films about innocent people forced to literally run for their lives.