Elephant Review
by Balaji Srinivasan (balaji_cheenu AT yahoo DOT com)October 13th, 2004
Review: Elephant (2003)
Starring Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson.
Written and Directed by Gus Van Sant.
** (out of 4)
Elephant is a film about a normal day at a High School. A kid gets a ride from his father who is drunk; Girls ogle at a young hunk; Teenagers talk about their dating situation and friendships; A photography enthusiast goes to the dark room to develop his pictures (he is trying to build a portfolio); A quiet, nerdy girl gets teased and ridiculed by her classmates at the gym.
Yet another day at yet another school.
Until two students come in with loaded bags and commando gear and start shooting anyone at sight.
Columbine is still fresh in the minds of the people. The trauma, the uninterrupted news coverage, the accusations flying in every direction from video games to violent movies to Adolf Hitler, the court battles afterward, have all made an indelible mark on the nation's psyche. Hence, it takes a lot of guts and determination to make a movie on such a sensitive issue.
There are several ways that Gus Van Sant could have run with his concept. He could have made a fictional film dealing with the blood and gory details, recounting what exactly happened. He could have put in a film that dealt with the issues that lead to such a massacre. Why did the students do this? What has caused such an escalation of violence in the society? Who is to be blamed? Is it the NRA, as Michael Moore would have you believe? Gus Van Sant could have made a tearjerker milking every last piece of the tragedy.
Instead, Gus Van Sant tells a story of a day at some high school. The kids go around doing their things; The killers come in and shoot; There are no questions posed; There are no answers provided. Such a minimalistic approach is both the strength and the weakness of the movie, depending on whether you bought into it.
I didn't.
The film follows a few students on the particular day of shooting, going about their normal lives. There is no fancy camera work. For the most part, the camera follows the teenagers through their chores with long takes on a steadycam with minimal cuts. The long shots help one take in the situation, ruminate on the youngsters and their lives and make other observations left to the viewer. There is little explanation to the psyche of the killers; in one scene, Van Sant shows the two boys kissing in the nude in the shower; in another, they are watching a video about Nazis and Hitler; in another, they are playing point-and-shoot video games.
The film doesn't tell us anything fresh about what happened. There is no underlying message that the film wants to push. The viewer is left to interpret what happened in his own way. The cinematic version of modern art, perhaps. I appreciate Gus Van Sant's point of view in doing this, but as a viewer and a non-connossieur of modern art, I don't subscribe to an eighty minute movie which doesn't appeal in any other way apart from its minimalism and its sharp focus in not dwelling into the whys and the whatifs. Even if it doesn't produce an answer that we need, even if there are no answers to find or insights to be gained.
'Elephant' won the Palme D'Or and gave Gus Van Sant the best director award at the Cannes. However, it got lost in the shuffle with other equally daring independent movies like 'Lost in Translation' and 'American Splendor'. Like his earlier indie film 'Gerry', Elephant tests and challenges the viewer. That is what independent films are for.
- Balaji Srinivasan (bb)
http://balaji.yi.org/blog/
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.
