Wisconsin Death Trip

This gripping documentary looks at events, many of them dealing with homicide, suicide, and mental illness, in the life of the town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin, during the nineteenth century.

If you think we are presently living in an unprecedentedly violent age, it will be enlightening to see the number of husbands who shot wives, wives who shot husbands, lovers who shot each other, parents who killed children, and children who killed whomever, in this sleepy midwestern town, filled with hard-working citizens of German and Norwegian descent.

Added into the mix is a remarkable number of mentally ill or drug-addicted people, notably Mary Sweeney, the "Wisconsin Window-Smasher," who destroyed tens of thousands of dollars worth of windows across the state, while taking cocaine to "steady her nerves."

The film is a combination of still photographs from the era and black-and-white set-piece recreations of the incidents, narrated beautifully by Ian Holm. The viewer should be warned, however, that it is not until the very last frame of the credits that we learn that not all the photographs shown necessarily correspond to the people in the incidents described.

A great work of social history, exploring a side of life many people prefer to ignore.

Wisconsin Death Trip is a beautifully filmed, lyrical look at the underside of human existence in Black River Falls, Wisconsin during the late Victorian era, cross-cut with color images of Black River Falls one hundred years hence (1997). Told with still photographs, renactments, narrators, Wisconsin Death Trip will certainly shock moviegoers who long for the 'good old days' when we lived in close-knit small towns (or farms), life was simple, immigrants were hard working, family farmers were successful, and children always obeyed their parents.

WDT shows us, often graphically, that murder, madness, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, arson, bad children, guns, superstitions, poverty, ignorance, adultery, and fears about old age have always been with us and perhaps will always be with us.

The only negative comment I can make is about the veracity of the 'documentary'. Many of the events that were reported in the movie to have occurred in the pages of the Black River Falls newspaper occurred in other places - Beaver Dam and Poynette are much further south, Appleton is much further east, Eau Claire and Rhinelander further north, and the state mental hospital in Mendota is in Madison. The river and the sandstone bluffs are near the Wisconsin Dells; beautiful, in Wisconsin, but not near Black River Falls.

Anyway, I think that for such a beautifully photographed film such as this, it is minor quibble. Wisconsin Death Trip is the movie you would get if Fellini, an absurdist and grandmaster of black and white film, had worked with Bergman, with his dour humanism and northern European sensibilities.

Loved it. My family came from Wisconsin; wish they had used some of our family stories.

'Nowhere in this great continent of ours can be found a more desirable residence.' This is a pitch for the small town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin. If by any chance you've already accepted this seemingly ordinarily little exaggeration as the truth, then its time you saw a melancholic little documentary called Wisconsin Death Trip.

This is a film which details the events that occurred in Black River Falls during the 1890s and is the director James Marsh's take on the 1970s literary cult classic of the same name, written by Michael Lesy. It seems that the whole town was besieged by fits of suicide, murder, lunacy and several inexplicable and bizarre events that could have been plucked cleanly from an Edward Gory poem. The grim and dark character of this strange little town and its inhabitants are communicated through photographs taken at the time and newspaper reports. The photos are connected to starkly beautiful black and white recreations of the odd goings-on of Black River Falls. Ian Holm narrates the film in a haunting and sometimes blackly comic manner, and a few records from the local insane asylum are whispered disturbingly, telling us about the many inhabitants who were committed there. The recreations are shot with dazzling fluidity, all are stunning to watch and every single one shocks or horrifies to an enthralling degree.

Like Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, this twisted tale takes place over several seasons and the other-worldly events just keep on happening; from a farmer who blew his own head off with dynamite to a 63 year old-14 year old paedophilliac marriage, they seem never-ending as the depressing Wisconsin Winter looms over the horizon. There are certain characters who keep reappearing throughout the film such as the 13 year old who shot an old man for fun and then participated in a western style chase and gun fight with a posse, and the has-been opera singer, Pauline L'Allemand, who moved to Black River Falls and slowly went mad, hearing voices from the spirit world and ended up in the Mendota Asylum for the Insane.

It is the morbid fascination that resides in some of us which makes us want to watch this to the end, to see just how tantalizingly strange the events in this town can get. The macabre style is pulled off with perfection; it is often grisly and melancholic to watch and yet I was fascinated by it and soaked up every moment. Wisconsin Death Trip fails, however in trying to convince us that Black River Falls hasn't changed since the 1890s. Its attempts (in colour, rather than black and white like the rest of the film), are rather forced and unsatisfying. But the blank, placid faces of the old people of the modern day town are certainly reminiscent of the photos taken back at the end of the 19th century. Perhaps the sheer number of the events at the time makes the film a little unbelievable, but it is the photos which remind us that these events actually took place and aid in bringing home the Gothic and demented atmosphere of the whole tragic tale.

The truth is: I was horrified and engrossed in the story of this freakish town and the maniacs who resided there. Then, after thinking about it, I realized that the crimes of passion, suicides and gun violence of our so-called 'modern society' were happening over a century ago. I believe that this is one of the most significant points James Marsh was trying to put across.

However, there are still some out and out undeniably weird happenings that took place in Black River Falls which would leave us utterly aghast if we saw them in the present day. When viewing, be sure to look out for the Polish girl who set fire to numerous buildings because she was 'lonely and homesick and needed some excitement.' and especially Mary Sweeney, with her window smashing antics.

Wisconsin death trip is not really a film that can be accused of being "entertaining." entertainment implies that you will sit their gripped by the story and enthralled by the narrative, and this can be applied to most documentaries, such as Bowling for Columbine or Spellbound.

However, Wisconsin death trip is not most documentaries. there is no narrative or story. instead, we are given a litany of deaths and events in the life of a small town in Wisconsin, USA. obviously, this is not going to be the happiest of films.

filmed in a soft black and white, with the exception of some shots of the town in modern times, we are given an insight into the strange events and deaths in the - whose name I forget ^_^;; - over the course of four different seasons.

for some reason, I found this film to be strangely compelling. whilst not having a huge running time, it gave me a morbid curiosity that kept me watching. strangely enough, you do start wanting to see what could possibly happen next in this small town.

In conclusion, whilst it is a slow-paced film, it can be compelling if you let it, and by the end you're wondering how many strange deaths one area can actually suffer.

7/10.

The film is based on newspaper articles and photos, which is surely why it is so emotionally detached from its subjects, but it is simply not possible to have absolutely no emotional connection to any of the characters and remain interested in hearing about their deaths for two hours. It becomes tedious after the first 20 minutes and almost unbearable after 45. The main reoccuring characters -- a whispering mental hospital clerk and a woman who compulsively breaks windows -- are given no personality at all, only roles to perform, and only add to the problem. While well-shot, this movie is dull, plodding, and the worst kind of bad movie: it doesn't even attempt to entertain you, it just drags you along, waiting for the end.