Video: Punishment Park is presented in its original 1.33:1, with solid, crisp video that showcases some amazing handheld cinematography.
Audio: Clear, and well used. The sound design, fitting the pseudo-doc style isn't overdone but presents everything clearly.
Extras: Watkins appears in a half-hour introduction that discusses both the film in its original context as well as his feelings on current politics. A commentary by Dr. Joseph Gomez is scholarly, if dry, as these tend to be. Also included are a text essay and the original press kit which provide some great context.
To Sum Up: As someone born long after the Vietnam war, Punishment Park was a great help for me in crystallizing what the radicals of the Vietnam era felt and thought. It is amazing the similarities in their worries and fears and many that my generation and I still have today. This is the type of charged, political filmmaking that we need to see more of, and I hope that the film's new release on DVD lets it become a focal point for this generation's young filmmakers.
Article comments
1 - Aaron Fleming
Excellent review!
Punishment Park is to me the greatest political film of all time, it's simply brilliant. I get goosebumps just thinking of its majesty.
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
I agree with Sir Fleming, excellent review here Jesse. I don't think Punishment Park is as good as Watkins' earlier The War Game, but it's still an incredible film, packed to the teeth with radical rhetort and more subtly subversive tomfoolery. It's little wonder why it's so obscure, given the content, but it's a damn shame. It's a film deserves an audience the width an breadth a Brazil.