Wisconsin Film Festival Shock docs (Mini-Fest #1)

The Wisconsin Film Festival's five-day, 192-film schedule can be tough for any one person to digest. To make it a little less overwhelming, The A.V. Club put together a few mini-festivals centered around strangely specific and not-so-obvious topics.

No matter how frightening a movie is, viewers go into the experience with the knowledge that what they’re seeing isn’t real. This built-in governor ratchets down the pressure even when things on-screen get particularly hairy. Documentaries don’t have the same safety valve, and that’s often the appeal: It's real. Our first "Mini-Fest" breakdown of Wisconsin Film Festival's offerings focuses on three particularly chilling documentaries and one overly gruesome mock-doc set in western Wisconsin.

The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers: April 15, 8 p.m., Orpheum Theatre
Synopsis: In 1971, war analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked top-secret documents to the New York Times that proved decades of institutional misdirection and lies leading up to the Vietnam War. Initially, it created the expected stir, but voter apathy and stupidity were affirmed as Richard Nixon won re-election, carrying 49 of 50 states.
How it fits: Watching one man risk his career, family, and a potential lifetime in prison for his principles is harrowing enough, but the most frightening aspects are found in the echoes between this 40-year-old story and the current U.S wars in the Middle East. The Most Dangerous Man In America doesn’t even touch on the links—it’s a film about Ellsberg’s transformation from lockstep bureaucrat to whistle-blower, and how one person truly does have the ability to change history. Still, the parallels are impossible to ignore. Substitute Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara for Donald Rumsfeld, and Vietnam for Iraq, and it’s not at all difficult to imagine watching the exact same movie a half-century from today.
If you like shock docs, you’ll like this because: It brings into sharp relief the fact that the larger-than-life figures who run our country aren’t supermen. They’re simply men and women whose daily grind involves shitty bosses and labyrinthine office politics just like everyone else, but also the added pressure of keeping impossible secrets.

HouseQuake: April 16, 2 p.m., Monona Terrace
Synopsis: Before Rahm Emanuel was known as Barack Obama’s Chief Of Staff and the world’s most famous naked finger-poker, he helmed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Under his leadership in 2006, Democrats gained 31 seats when they only needed 15 to take over the majority in the House of Representatives.
How it fits: The Dems are typically cast (and rightly so) as lacking killer instinct and testicular fortitude. HouseQuake examines Emanuel’s win-at-all-costs tenacity, specifically in regard to the candidates he championed. In some cases their platforms were nearly indistinguishable from those of their Republican opponents, save for the fact that, if elected, they’d cast their first vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. By focusing on seven races over 90 minutes, HouseQuake often skips detailed analysis in favor of storybook broad strokes, but it does dispel the hoary maxim that “all politics is local.” In this case, the number 15 was all that mattered, and Emanuel employed more than a little Machiavellian cunning to make sure the votes were delivered.
If you like shock docs, you’ll like this because: In politics, feel-good stories often last only as long as the next election cycle. HouseQuake shows it doesn’t take much for yesterday’s hero to become today’s headline fodder.

Human Terrain: April 16, 5 p.m., Chazen Museum of Art
Synopsis: In an even-handed and engrossing presentation, Human Terrain examines new U.S. war policies put into practice to ensure today’s soldiers have not only finely honed professional killing skills, but cultural sensitivities as well.
How it fits: At first blush, it would seem that it could in no way be a bad thing to incorporate cultural studies into war planning. Human Terrain shows how it’s not so much a black-and-white proposition, particularly when the definitions of “culture” the U.S. military uses are outmoded. (For instance: It’s not just Iraqi men who feel shamed after they’re paraded naked in front of women.) Academics in the film argue that cultures aren’t static, and that trying to fit them into yes-no video-game teaching tools causes far more harm than good. They also argue that this type of training can even lead to justifications for wartime atrocities.
If you like shock docs, you’ll like this because: It’s a stark and well-argued reminder that wars can’t ever be fought humanely, no matter how well-intentioned their war planners may be.

Re-Cut: April 17, 10 p.m., Chazen Museum of Art
Synopsis: In attempting to secure an interview with a reality star-turned-TV reporter (played by Meredith Phillips, real-life star of the second season of The Bachelorette), two documentary filmmakers are convinced to help her investigate a murder. To little surprise, they uncover secrets they absolutely shouldn’t be uncovering in small-town Wisconsin. (Re-Cut was primarily filmed in Dodgeville and Spring Green.)
How it fits: The two filmmakers are loaded with guerilla cameras for their project that quickly goes awry. The opening credits state, “In the Fall of 2009, the following video was intercepted by the Internet Crimes Division of the FBI.” The faux found-art snuff film isn’t a new moviemaking device, but Re-Cut expertly doles out the scares in an enjoyable dose of Wisconsin Gothic. Wisconsinites will nod approvingly at the scene-setting blaze orange, dead deer, and ramshackle farmhouses, but the story stands tall even without the Sconnie brushstrokes. Re-Cut is a tight thriller filled with murder, gore, pedophilia, and what quite possibly might be the most graphic use of a mechanical milking machine ever put to film.
If you like shock docs, you’ll like this because: It’s really fucking creepy. Re-Cut mines a territory somewhere between the handheld psychological horror of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, and the please-make-it-stop torture-porn of Hostel and its kin. It has a little something (and in some cases too much) for fans of both subtle scares and sickening carnage.