Tubi is a weird one. Owned by the malignant Fox Corp, it’s a free streaming platform that makes its money through adverts (a stroke that landed it on Fast Company’s “World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies” last year, proving once again capitalism is a liquid hot dynamo of invention). In terms of programming it seems to licence whatever it can get, and so for the price of your email address you can watch classics from the silent era, a slew of B-movies, whole catalogues of exploitation schlock, and a grab-bag of international, highbrow, and overlooked blockbuster films. Worth it, is what I’m saying.
On the list of Tubi good stuff is Punishment Park from legendary English director Peter Watkins. Filmed during the Vietnam War it imagines an alternative 1970s where martial law has taken over the US. Groups of dissidents are hauled through “tribunals” where they’re inevitably found guilty and offered a choice: prison or Punishment Park.
The Park is a proto-Hunger Games setup in the wilds of California. Prisoners are free to go if within three days they can reach a certain point 50 miles into the desert while evading armed law enforcement.
What makes the film so intriguing is its mockumentary form. Watkins shoots the whole thing in character as a British TV producer and pulls individuals from all sides in front of the camera for interviews throughout the action. He follows two groups of dissidents, one going through a tribunal and another in the Park, and the resulting commentary on race, gender, freedom of speech, and civil liberties feels awfully chilling 55 years later.
Punishment Park (1971), 87 minutes, Tubi. Available indefinitely.
Back on the trusty iPlayer, Charlotte Wells’ first (and to date only) feature Aftersun is not to be missed. It’s a melancholy, impressionistic film from the perspective of Frankie, a schoolgirl on holiday at a Turkish resort with her father. Well, strictly speaking it’s from the perspective of an adult Frankie remembering her dad in flashback, a framing device that takes a while to prove its worth.
Paul Mescal gives probably the best performance of his career so far as Frankie’s dad, young enough that it takes us a while to adjust to the idea he has an 11-year-old but wounded enough that he’s clearly been through some very bad things. The pace is slow and in the middle wobbles to a near stop, but stick with it – it’s all building to an emotional payoff that anyone who ever had parents will find hard to resist.
Aftersun (2022), 93 minutes, BBC iPlayer. Available until February 2027.