Description:
Inspired by the cult-favorite book by Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip is an eerily dreamlike film about the moral, spiritual, and physical collapse of a small American town in the 1890s. Stricken by economic depression, harsh winters, and a diphtheria epidemic that decimated the local infant population, the citizens of Black River Falls, Wisconsin--primarily German and Norwegian immigrants hoping for a better life in America--fell victim to a rising tide of insanity, murder, arson, and moral breakdown. By creating moody black-and-white reenactments of the horrid events chronicled in Lesy's book (which includes the haunting v
Inspired by the cult-favorite book by Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip is an eerily dreamlike film about the moral, spiritual, and physical collapse of a small American town in the 1890s. Stricken by economic depression, harsh winters, and a diphtheria epidemic that decimated the local infant population, the citizens of Black River Falls, Wisconsin--primarily German and Norwegian immigrants hoping for a better life in America--fell victim to a rising tide of insanity, murder, arson, and moral breakdown. By creating moody black-and-white reenactments of the horrid events chronicled in Lesy's book (which includes the haunting vintage photographs of the town's official photographer), director James Marsh conveys, through chilling detachment and the subtly sardonic narration by Ian Holm, the impression of sly bemusement, as if Black River Falls was preordained by fate to become a village of the damned. It's both fiendishly macabre and yet strangely compelling, weakened only by Marsh's suggestion (through color sequences of present-day Wisconsin) that things have never really changed since those creepy, ill-fated days when death was seemingly everywhere. Apart from that half-baked attempt at irony, Wisconsin Death Trip is a film you won't soon forget. --Jeff Shannon
Inspired by the Michael Lesy book of the same name, Wisconsin Death Trip is an intimate, shocking, and sometimes hilarious account of the disasters that befell one small town in Wisconsin during the 1890s. The town of Black River Falls is gripped by a peculiar malaise and the weekly news accounts are dominated by bizarre talk of madness, eccentricity, and violence amongst the local population. Suicide and murder are commonplace, and people are haunted by ghosts, possessed by devils, and terrorized by teenage outlaws and arsonists.
Featuring music by Debussy, Blind Mellon Jefferson, John Cale, and DJ Shadow. Narrated by Ian Holmes.
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Manufacturer: Home Vision Entertainment
Release date: 24 February 2004
Number of discs: 1
UPC: 037429183625
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