Elephant: A Film By Gus Van Sant (2003)

 powerful
Elephant is an extremely powerful movie. It explores the lives of different teenagers who experience high school in a variety of ways. After viewing this movie for the first time, I couldn't stop thinking of it. Gus Van Sant did an excellent portral of the feeling of multiple students. Elephant exemplifies many themes and expresses a complex subject in a realistic matter. This is a must see film! March 24, 2008

 You Can't Buy Guns Like That!!!
I have a feeling Sarah Brady was behind this lying peice of filth. While you can order firearms online, they can not be shipped to a private residence. This film is downright lying in that regard, as the boys order their guns online and fedex just shows up at the door and gives them their guns. Mrs. Brady, you should be ashamed of yourself.

You can order and purchase a firearm online, but it will only be shipped to a lisenced Federal Firearms Dealer. You have to email, fax, or plain old mail the lisence in with your order, so the site can confirm the address they are shipping the gun to is actually a gun deal with a legit license. Then they ship it to the dealer, you go in and pass the background checks, pay a fee for having them get the gun, and then it's yours.

This is my big beef with this movie, it's lying to uneducated people and making them think that it's just that easy for a kid to get a gun. March 8, 2008

 Beautiful, inspired, organic, pretentious, pointless, apathetic; surprisingly they all apply...
This is one of those rare occasions where a film's strengths ultimately become its weaknesses. There is something so graceful and serene about `Elephant' that you can't help but admire Gus Van Sant's approach to the direction, but in the end that same serene feeling can leave the viewer almost apathetic to the tragic outcome and thus dampens the emotional punch the film should deliver.

As the film opens with beautiful cinematography, graceful and simple clean sweeps across the school campus, you can't help but be drawn into this presentation. It's almost so lucid it's compelling. There is no depth to the sequences, everything is just so normal. The characters are ordinary. They talk about girls and boys and photos and shopping and four-wheeling. They converse about nothing and accomplish nothing. They're vapid and apathetic. In essence they are human. This is a strength in that the characters appear human. We feel as though we know them, maybe we are them. Not every film has to be filled to the brim with characters that have emotional problems for family problems or out of the norm situations. Yes, one character is obviously shy and introverted and self conscious about her body and one character obviously has some family problems but neither of these issues is exploited for our sympathies. This same `strength' becomes a major weakness as the film starts to dwindle down to its climax. These characters are so transparent that their tragic demise doesn't really faze the viewer. I know that sounds harsh, and let me say that the final moments of the film are heartbreaking, but they don't have a lasting impression. When the film ended I simply rolled over and went to sleep. The same graceful approach to the direction also begins to weaken the film in the closing moments. Instead of tightening the reigns and thrusting the viewer into the violence full throttle they are left to witness everything in a very calm and simple manor. It leaves the viewer almost detached from the crimes instead of a part of it.

But then again, maybe that is the whole point...

I think that's why I'm torn with this film. It lies somewhere between cinematic masterpiece and art-house overshot. I can't tell if it's trying too hard or not trying hard enough, or maybe the impression of effortlessness is not an impression at all but truly an effortless creation. The simplicity of the film is either welcomed magnificence or frustrating indifference; it's all a matter of how you look at it.

It's quite possible that we are supposed to feel nothing with the credits begin to roll. It's quite possible that the purpose behind `Elephant' is to prove that tragedies of this magnitude happen so often we as a culture have grown callused to it. If that is the case then consider this a marvelous example of enlightening cinema.

It's also quite possible that that is not the intention at all.

In the end `Elephant' is a film that I think everyone needs to see at least once. It's not a film that anyone can tell you is good or bad because it all comes down to personal connection in the end. Everyone is going to react differently to this film depending on their own interpretation of the meaning behind it. In a way this is the films largest strength/weakness. It suffers in that it reaches a smaller demographic because of its avant-garde production but it soars in that the demographic it does reach; the loyally devoted fans of this film; will embrace it as perfection and thus laud it as a marvelous contribution to the world of cinema. March 6, 2008

 Definition of "inane" and "waste"
This movie is inane, bad, boring, etc... I could feel my IQ drop as I watched it. This movie has no redeeming value whatsoever. Keep in mind this was directed by the same "brilliant" director who remade "Psycho." You will kick yourself if you waste any time watching this. This film is not "artsy", "brilliant" or another positive adjective. February 1, 2008

 WE ARE GOING TO DIE TODAY
2003. Written and directed by Gus Van Sant. Golden Palm of the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Cold analysis of a mass murder in an American high school by two teenagers. If you like this movie, take a look at Murali K. Thalluri's 2:37 or at Larry Clark's movies. They all describe the peculiar and cruel world of the adolescence. Frightening. November 3, 2007

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