Elephant

'Elephant' deals with one of the elephants in America's living room (one of the obvious but not dealt with problem - the culture of vulgarized violence which, combined with the easy access to weapons lead to the violent high school incidents like the one in Columbine. Director Gus Van Sant after cashing some good money from a previous commercial success did this movie the way he wanted, so he is the only to praise or blame for the film success or failure. The treatment is really different from what you expect, much is being invested in showing the banality of the teenagers life, the next door kid profile of both vilains and victims. No obvious message, the viewer is left completely on his own to draw its own conclusions, like in real life. The method works for much of the film, you feel the tension because you know what happened, but otherwise much of the film could be a high-school documentary, sometimes amusing, sometimes boring (why these long corridor shots?). I liked this approach to a point, but then too much is left to the viewer, and the characters (acted mostly by non-professional actors) do not have enough emotional depth. A film is to be judged based on what you see on the screen. Based on this it gets only 7 out of 10 on my personal scale, although the discussions it opens on the subject, and the thoughts after the screening may grant it a higher rate.

This movie is a fictional story, but it is essentially a retelling of the Columbine High massacre. It only spans maybe an hour in time, but it coves the points of view of a lot of people, from victims to bystanders to the murderers themselves.

It's a particularly important piece because of its storytelling style. Van Sant has the camera follow one character at a time, on the day of the murders, and lets the story tell itself. It is about as neutral as one can get, really. Van Sant doesn't use foreshadowing, he doesn't frame any character up as a particular archetype, he doesn't play ominous music, and the dialogue is about as inane and high school-ish as you can get, very realistic actually. There are no jokes, and relatively few scenes designed for maximum shock effect. That's the whole point: the situation was a normal high school day, and the very events, regardless of how you paint them, should be as shocking as anything. All the while you're asking yourself, "How can this possibly lead to a massacre? These are all normal kids," which faithfully recreates the tone of morning leading up the unexpected real life events.

If you're looking for a conventional movie with a clear beginning, middle, end, good and bad guys, glorified heroism and demonized violence, you won't like this movie, it's not a made for TV special, it's closer to an art film.

Some people have expressed anger at the movie, accusing it of some sort of liberal Michael Moore anti-2nd amendment sympathies or heavy handed preaching. Having seen it I can't possibly understand what they're talking about. My suspicion is that they're seeing what they want to see. And that leads me to wonder just what a good movie about Columbine would look like, in their opinions. To me, this is it.

My opinions regarding 'Elephant' are somehow mixed. Okay, so I knew beforehand that the film was going to be about a shootout in a school. So that may have influenced my opinion but on the other hand if I did not know this, would I have sat through the entire movie? I ask this because the first hour drags. The cinematography is good and at times the viewer feels like a stalker or a fellow student observer. 'Elephant' takes place during the day of the shoot and the director gives us a glimpse of the lives of some of the teenagers but none of them were particularly interesting and Van Sant has adhered to using clichés such as portraying the 'nerd', the 'loser', the 'popular one', the 'bulemic girls' etc. Some questions I want to ask: Is it really that easy to get hold of such a high profile weapon, that too, delivered at your own doorstep? Van Sant doesn't directly give the motivation behind the student who decides to massacre the students although he does hint bullying and teasing as a possible motive. The shooters had to be repressed homosexuals? Why was it necessary to show them as homosexuals? I think many have liked it for the shock in the final thirty minutes but what I would have rather liked to see was a story about what causes young teenagers to take drastic action or what was going through the minds of students when this happened (which is what I thought 'Elephant' was going to be about). I like 'Gus Van Sant' as a director but in my humble opinion 'Elephant' is far from his best work. However, after seeing the film, it did get me thinking of the real life incidents that happened and the innocent lives that were lost. So, it would be wrong of me to say that 'Elephant' was a complete waste. It's not horrendous. It just could have easily been far better.

Imagine it: A horrific tragedy has taken place in a local school, the violence and inexplicability of which has stunned everyone who has heard of it. A meeting is announced that will address the issues that such an event has raised. At the meeting, the main speaker takes the floor, stares at his audience for a few long seconds, then shrugs his shoulders and mumbles "S**t happens". What? You ask. That's it? "Well," he says, "you can't expect me to provide YOU with the answers. But I did take some nice photos".

That's "Elephant".

It would be hard to tackle such a topic without sinking into "Movie of the Week" territory, so Van Sant avoids this by sitting down and not doing much of anything. But artfully.

Why was this film made? What does it tell us about the events? That they happened. What does he tell us about the victims? Nothing, absolutely nothing. We follow them around, interminably (I feel I knew the backs of their heads intimately, if nothing else) and it's a lot like reality tv -- dull: uninvolving, unrevealing and uneventful. What does it tell us about the perpetrators? Nothing we don't already know, haven't already read. Insights? None. It exists in its own universe, blank and unfeeling, a perfect circle, Art for Art's sake.

As far as it goes, there are some beautiful touches, here -- the overlapping time frames, the slowing down of the action to signify a small, private, joyful moment -- but Van Sant bottles out on taking them anywhere, afraid as he seems to be of taking a stand, making a statement or engaging, emotionally, in any way with anything here.

All in all, an Artsy and pointless exercise in navel-gazing, one that masquerades as something much deeper, and hopes its own silence and blankness will be taken for wisdom.

It's been over five years now but we still try to understand why Columbine happened. As exploration of the tragic and shocking event, poetic, poignant, and sadly under-seen "Elephant" has no equals. The film did not have a lot of press, and my local video store had only one copy sitting on the bottom shelf.

There could be different reasons for the title: it could've came from the old saw about the elephant in the room no one notices, or from the legend of four blind men who only could feel one part of the animal and described the whole as a part; or it could've come from the fact the elephants have a good memory and remember all insults.

The film shows several kids who just spend a typical day in a typical suburban American High school that ends up in a massacre. "Elephant" asks questions: What was it like to be there that day? Who could've seen it coming? What does it mean to be an American teenager and live in the world where it happens? For many of the film's characters those questions will never be answered.

"Elephant" is painfully honest and sincere about the complexities of teenage life - the time when one tries to achieve impossible - to be unique and to fit with the crowd.

I think "Elephant" is the best film about teenagers since - well, the only one that comes to my mind is "Welcome to the Dollhouse" (1995) by Todd Solondz.

I think it is one of the best anti - violence films ever.