Not in the traditional documentary format, Wisconsin Death Trip is disturbingly beautiful. The first thing that is noticeable about the film is its intensely visual direction in an extremely eye pleasing black and white art house style backed up with Ian Holm's competent narration (another narrator is used in confusing whisper to tell of those sectioned at the mental asylum, something of which doesn't really make any sense of have any meaning to it but is a nice difference in direction). As a documentary, the film just documents facts. Focusing on strange stories from a small Wisconsin town (Black River City) in the 1890's when (unexplainably) the people started to randomly commit crime after crime in horrific fashion through anarchy, murder, arson, paedophilia and other deranged acts (including a humorous tale of a cocaine addict who persistently smashed local windows for now reason.) Wisconsin Death Trip has these moments of humour, but by no way stretch of the imagination is it a pleasing narrative. Harrowing accounts of acts of violence from the local journalist about the occupiers of the small city and its surroundings are reinacted for the screen in a dry, depressing surrealism. In narrating article after article of random stories of suicide, murder etc
the Direction shows actors play out these events in a wonderfully designed time of old in America taking us throughout the seasons of the year in subtly effective montages of newspaper being printed. Contrasted to this is a modern perception of the same town, displaying school children in a playground happily getting on with life. The elderly living contently at a home and other accounts and recollections of stories they had heard from rumour about the history of Black River City and Wisconsin. However, the film never tries to even start to understand what happened in that area for everyone to commit these heinous crimes in the 1890's, nor does it seem to hold this as a relevant part tot the story, it merely documents the events that took place with linear narration and hand in hand visual aids that were very cinematic. It differs greatly to traditional documentaries in this sense by not following any one particular story, but deciding to document what had already happened and disturbingly, this film was made for television, something of which is interesting to contemplate how it was marketed. The film may be looked upon as having no real meaning and would bore audiences who seek an answer, but they would be a hard audience not to be drawn into the film by its wonderful cinematography and appealing narrative.
Review of Wisconsin Death Trip
