Elephant Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)October 24th, 2003
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If you hate substance but absolutely love shots of teenagers walking in slow motion, then you're either writer-director Gus Van Sant or one of the whack jobs on the Cannes jury that awarded his Elephant both the Golden Palm and Best Director awards at this year's festival (over Clint Eastwood's alleged masterpiece Mystic River, among others). The picture is essentially a re-telling of what may have happened the day of the Columbine massacre, but for an elephant of a subject, this Elephant is almost ridiculously lightweight. Van Sant's indifference is the film's ultimate undoing. He takes the easy way out, shortchanging his viewers in the process.
There isn't much story of which to speak. Instead, we're introduced to about ten students at an almost frighteningly dark Portland, Oregon high school. Their brief introductions are shown out of sequence and, at times, overlap with each other as they lead up to the big shoot-'em-up finale. But their characterizations are so shallow, we're forced to stereotype each role. Not that Van Sant's flimsy script (it was mostly improvised by this cast of non-professional actors) doesn't do enough of its own stereotyping. In Elephant, his killers are sexually confused, Hitler-loving dweebs who get off on playing single-person shooting videogames. Now that's going out on a limb.
If Elephant was supposed to offer insight as to why horrors like this happen, it failed. If it was supposed to make people think about why horrors like this happen, it failed. Elephant is pure, exploitative shlock that audiences and critics might confuse with art in the same way they always seem to love watching the exact same Holocaust films over and over and over again every year. Hmmm...if it's difficult to watch and based on real events, I have to love it! <bleat!>
Even people who dug Elephant seem to have a problem with Van Sant (Gerry) injecting his own gay twist on things. Why they chose to focus on that is a mystery, especially when there are so many other things to complain about. This is an 81-minute movie that could have easily clocked in at less than 15. As far as the title goes, there's a drawing of an elephant - the one in the room nobody wants to pay attention to - hanging in the basement bedroom of one of the shooters. Why Van Sant didn't stick a picture of Marilyn Manson next to the elephant remains unanswered.
1:21 - R for disturbing violent content, language, brief sexuality and drug use - all involving teens
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
