The Punishment
The doors are closed. There are no more screenings of this film.
Synopsis: A grief-stricken father hunts down the boy responsible for the events which led to his son’s murder but finds himself unable to escape the consequences of his own violent actions.
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Director's Statement
I was compelled to write and direct THE PUNISHMENT by news reports from Northern Ireland of parents bringing their children to be beaten by sectarian paramilitaries as punishment for antisocial behaviour. As I considered a worldview that could normalise such drastic action, I decided to make a film that would explore the aftermath of a punishment beating.
To better use the resources at hand, I shifted the action of THE PUNISHMENT to Scotland and set it in a gang context. The parent and the punisher became a single character: Michael, a gang enforcer whose son has just died as a result of injuries sustained in a punishment beating.
Michael leaves home and goes on a journey across Glasgow to resolve his inner turmoil, but as repetition within the staging and the mise en scene suggests, there is no way for Michael to escape his responsibility for the death of his son.
In THE PUNISHMENT, I use the edges of the frame to exclude the other characters who populate Michael’s milieu. This encourages the viewer to watch Michael closely and to draw their own conclusions about his thoughts and feelings based on his reaction to the events happening around him.