Dette berømte dokumentar-dramaet skildrer den unge Edvard Munch, hans forhold til sin dypt religiøse, borgerlige familie, hardt rammet av sinnsykdom, sykdom og død. Hans møte med Kristiania- bohemens kamp mot det bestående og de første vanskelige forhold til kvinner. Bakgrunnen er tidens klassemotsetninger og kulturkamp. I sentrum står Munch og hans tidlige malerkunst, evig konsentrert om temaene sykdom og død, ulykkelig kjærlighet og angstfylt seksualitet. Mye av dialogen er hentet fra hans dagbøker. Alle rollene er besatt av amatører, og også dette bidrar til filmens særpregede, fiktivt dokumentariske form. (Cover)

Both controversial and relentless in its depiction of suppression and brutality, Punishment Park was heavily attacked by the mainstream press and permitted only the barest of releases in 1971. However Peter Watkins' film has established itself as one of the key, yet rarely seen, radical films of the late 1960s/early 1970s. Giving voice to the disaffected youth of America that had lived through the campus riots at Berkeley, the trial of the Chicago Seven and who were witnessing the escalation of the Vietnam War, Punishment Park was named by Rolling Stone as one of their top ten films of 1971 and has earned many admirers in the four decades since its release.

Set in a detention camp in an America of the near-future, Punishment Park's pseudo-documentary style (continuing Watkins' subversive innovations with Culloden and The War Game) places a British film crew amongst a group of young students and minor dissidents who have opted to spend three days in 'Bear Mountain Punishment Park'. The detainees, rather than accept lengthy jail sentences for their 'crimes', gamble their freedom on an attempt to reach an American flag - on foot and without water - through the searing heat of the desert. The pursuit of Group 637 - a lethal, one-sided game of cat-and-mouse with a squad of heavily armed police and National Guardsmen - is contrasted with the corrupt trial of Group 638 by a quasi-judicial tribunal. (Cover)