Elephant (2003)

Sadly Over-hyped

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Many U.S. school massacres have gone by since 2003, and they haven't made this film seem dated or less relevant.This film is a very bold achievement. It is filmed in a real school building with a cast mostly composed of real non-professional teenagers. We can't help but react to them emotionally. Some are irritating, some are pitiable, some are admirable for one or another reason. We follow them on long walks around the long corridors of this well-equipped school, we observe some of the minutiae of their day. The timelines of the characters are presented non-linearly; they loop over each other like a spool of film that has been allowed to unreel in a pile. And then some of them die, because there are school shootings in this country.The title "Elephant" was borrowed from a British short film by Alan Clarke, which concentrated on assassinations and terror killings in Ireland during the 1980's. There are some stylistic similarities - a lot of long walks, a lot of steadicam work - but the two films are actually very different works in tone and focus. The Clarke film is ALL assassinations. Clarke deliberately refuses to give any of his many shootings a political context or rationale, but he also declines to provide any matrix of ordinary life. In contrast, Van Sant's "Elephant" is very much about that ordinary life, and about how terrible it is that it gets abruptly cut off.People ask why students take guns and go out and kill lots of people. Some of the blurbs I have seen for "Elephant" unconsciously, and incautiously, adopt the "bullied teen" narrative. Some bullied teens may sometimes take violent revenge, either on their agemates or on the system, but that's not we actually see in Van Sant's film, and in fact I believe he deliberately undercuts this kind of facile explanation. There is only one instance of bullying on screen of one of the killers - some glop is thrown at him. The other killer accuses the principal of having mistreated him, but we didn't see it ourselves.Meanwhile, other kids whom we see in the course of the day actually deal with injustice and neglect and bullying with much more resilience. And a lot of things are going on in the killers' lives that don't involve bullying. Eric is into gun culture. Alex is frustrated that he can't get that piano piece right. Probably there are a lot of frustrated kids around the world, but in our country they can get guns awfully easily. (At this point someone will call it a "goof" that they apparently order guns by mail or package delivery, but this is a technicality.) And - bottom line - Alex really just seems to like killing and terrifying people.Van Sant, who not only wrote and directed this picture but also gets editing honors, gets full auteur credit for the enterprise, but there are a couple of places where I think he could have used a second opinion. Let's just say it - I think the "Benny" episode was odd. I don't mean that it's odd that it blows up movie conventions, that was good. (Ebert singled this out as a memorable point.) But I think it stands out, maybe more than in 2003, that this African-American student, the only one with a named segment, got no lines or personal background. Also I think the way the film ends on Alex's sadistic little gaming was a false note. Not that Alex wouldn't have wanted to act that way, but that kind of lady-or-tiger-or-both ending has been done a lot. But still, on the whole, this is a pretty amazing work.

This is a difficult movie to weigh up. On the surface it might seem really ordinary. It's superior elements, i sometimes think is heightened by the music of Beethoven. I know Gus used his music in a wa y as a link to how Alex worshiped Beethoven in A Clockwork Orange, as the fine line between madness and genius. However I don't see that genius in these two youngsters that go on a killing rampage. I don't get to know them very well and it's easy to generalize about them and their intentions.Maybe that's what Gus wants to say. He has one conversation talking about how you spot a homosexual, and this makes you wonder in context of what we do so see, contrasting a seemingly feminine character with long blonde hair and the two straight-looking gay killers. But are they gay just because they kiss? And, what does that have to do with their motivations or sense of isolation from the rest of the school?Most of the other characters just talk nonsense all the time. That is realistic so it's not a criticism. It was an interesting decision by Gus to use these arb conversations. I mostly like the way he ties up the walks of all the characters around the school. i once saw a video that brings them all together and that made me appreciate the film more so.I used to think Last Days was his best film in this trilogy. Gerry wasn't very good, it was more arb and less satisfactory. Elephant has to be the strongest but it still leaves me empty at the end. It's not a film that discusses the why's. It's a film that just shows you simply what happened. And that's why I rate his decision highly, but not high enough.

The students are mostly part stereotype. The girls who parade to the bathroom in groups to vomit up their lunch, and quarrel over how one of them might be spending too much time with her boyfriend. The nerdy, bespectacled girl who is bad and sports and finds solace in the library. The jocks with their cheerleader girlfriends. The quieter students whom are bullied by those jocks, and so on. But stereotypes always have an inkling of truth to them, they don't sprout from nowhere. Every school will have these people. And this makes it all the more frightening; who could be next? Van Sant has a simple style that serves his objective. The camera glides alongside these students, capturing every deep and shallow observation, every quote from Shakespeare and every "Want to go shopping?" He layers the story lines with each other; Michelle walks right into the centre of frame, obscuring the jocks at their football game, as if to declare that she too is important. And then on the second level, he builds each storyline towards the inevitable climax, leaving little clues and timestamps for us to look out for. Tension is slowly accumulated, and as a rational viewer we want to spot those telltale signs, a motive, something. Van Sant dangles all the usual indications when an event like this occurs; the boys playing a first-person shooter, the scenes of bullying, the clutching of the forehead in pain to signal mental illness. It is also a marvel of sound design. There is no score, but the sound levels are masterfully controlled for maximum impact. In one instance the cafeteria's mundane sounds build and build until they drown out everything else, and we begin to suspect a pained existence for the shooters. In another, Alex is practising his piano, and the soft, melodic tune gradually increases in intensity as Eric accumulates his kill-streak on the computer game until he gives up and gives the ritual a middle finger - it's a brilliant example of audio-visual association. And in a haunting sequence, they quietly yet nonchalantly go over their plan, and this is intercut with the deafening gunshots of their later massacre. As the title dictates, four blind men each touch a part of an elephant's body, and declare it to be a different animal. But they are only grasping a small part of the bigger picture, and are unable to piece it all together. And so Van Sant regards the endless speculation on these types of shootings; he dangle clues but does not give them any more than a moment's notice. This links itself to the scene of the Gay-Straight Alliance - the leader poses whether it is possible to discern sexual orientation simply by physical appearance, and the camera arcs around the group discussion, as if to urge us to try and guess. But of course, we cannot with any certainty. They cracked because of the incessant bullying? Tell that to poor Michelle, the first victim of the shooting who would never hurt a fly. Van Sant sees it all so clear, and without a hint of an agenda. There is no building of unfortunate circumstance, no impression of luck - it would be simple to insert such scenarios into the film to ramp up the tragedy: a pregnant teacher, a blossoming football genius, a class on the verge of graduation. But he doesn't - this could've happened on any school day. The 'action' of the shooting itself is cold and calculated. They discuss briefly before they storm the school, and remind themselves to "have fun", as if it was a coach giving a pep talk to his little group of soccer players. The gunshots are loud without comparison, and they take life so swiftly, without reason. There is no moment of remorse, no hero moment for Benny, no miraculous escape against the odds. Good action scenes makes us want to watch again and again for the breathtaking thrills they provide. Great action scenes that are concerned with realistic violence and subject matter such as this are unwatchable, because it does not seek to prop up a cause, or trying to sensationalise a conscientious topic. As Alex counts down to an agonising inevitability, I could barely keep my eyes on the screen.

It's a regular high school in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. Elias is an artistic photographer. John seems happy except for his drunk dad. Nathan and Carrie are the hot couple. Acadia is a gay activist. Michelle is an awkward nerd. Brittany, Jordan and Nicole are chatty girls. It's a normal day until Eric and Alex show up armed for mayhem. They're outsiders struggling with bullying. They play first person shooter games, watch Hitler on TV, buy guns off the internet and are possibly gay.Gus Van Sant has obviously taken inspiration from the Columbine massacre. He has a cast of young amateur newbies to play the kids. The only recognizable face is Matt Malloy who plays the principal Mr. Luce. I like the regular kids approach. I even like the the hypnotic minimalist style. I always love approaching the same event from different points of view. It's a bit slow but it's kind of interesting. My biggest problem is the portrait of the killers. This is fictional but the killers have to feel real. This is such an important part of the movie. I rather Eric & Alex be an enigma than ending up feeling false in any way. Gus Van Sant should have left their backstory out of the movie. The movie needs to shed an insightful light on the killers or else it should leave them as mysteries. There are some docudramas based on true events that are more compelling.