I recently discovered the films of
Peter Watkins. I heard about one of his films (guess which one) from The Atomic Age blog and Podcast at Ground Zero, and when I went looking for it, I found that a local independent video rental store (is there any other kind these days?) had a number of his films in their directors section.
The War Game: A 1965 docu-drama that takes a realistic look at the possible effects of nuclear war on Britain. This film so scared the British government that it was banned for twenty years.
The Gladiators: Predating both
The Hunger Games and
Battle Royal, this film is a cold war satire in which generals from east and west preside over a series of televised “Peace Games” in which soldiers fight to the death over nonexistent objectives.
Punishment Park: Filmed in 1970 and set in a near future American dystopia in which President Nixon has declared a state of national emergency, this is an oddly prescient film from a modern point of view.
Punishment Park depicts a militarized U.S. in which police and national guard troops brutalize civil rights and antiwar protesters. Crazy right? Never gonna happen. What stood out most to me, when watching
Punishment Park in 2014, was the lack of heavy duty military equipment; the cops are armed with revolvers & shotguns and drive around in Crown Vic’s without any body armour. Compared to the cops in many modern U.S. cities, even the national guard troops in this film look woefully under-equipped.
