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| Elephant |
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  (5/10)
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Runtime: 81 m |
| Public Rating: 7.56 (85 votes) |
Director: Gus Van Sant |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 2003 |
| Writer(s): Gus Van Sant |
| Distributor: HBO Films |
| Reviewed by: Oktay Ege Kozak |
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There is no way of actually criticizing “Elephant”. This film cannot be seen in a rating value where critics give their own amount of stars or thumbs or whatever they use to discern a “good” film from a “bad” one; even though they have been doing it (Some credits found it to be horrible while some like Roger Ebert gave it four stars). This is not a story that exists on a screenplay or tells a viable event. It doesn’t follow any form of narrative but isn’t exactly an experimental film either. It’s not just a jumble of pretty pictures and it does follow certain fictional characters. And by follow, I mean that literally. The film is a true exploration of life as it is; no dramatic cuts, no sweetening and get this, no plot and it really does follow certain characters as they go about their painfully regular lives during the first twenty minutes of a boring, tedious and painfully normal high school day. The film recycles these minutes by following those several characters during the same timeline (Causing some of them to interject, creating a true interpolation of time) until they are met with the brutal shooting perpetrated by two students that, just like the others, are just followed without explanation, merit or extreme dramatization. The film tries to be, and probably succeeds in bringing to the screen nothing but the regular and tedious developments of life and like life, it deserves to be seen nothing more than a moderate event and be split down the middle. This is the reason I’m giving it five stars, not because it’s necessarily a bad movie.
From a subject matter standpoint, I understand the film’s affliction with choosing a completely unexplainable and non-dramatic narration because who has been able to solve the events of Columbine, really? Micheal Moore did probably the best documentary ever made trying to solve the problem and even he couldn’t come up with an answer for it. After two hours of exploring every single facet of American culture, the whole thing came down to the part where he is speaking to a father of one of the victims where they relentlessly keep asking each other “What is it that makes us so violent?”. So what kind of a dramatic stand point could one take in such a delicate fashion? None whatsoever. And should this film be commended for pulling off such a heavy task of actually replicating real life? Yes it does. And should it have actually been produced? That’s another issue.
You see, why should we have to go through eighty minutes of some one else’s life while we also walk, sneeze, run and have uninteresting dialogue? Is it because the film might try to prove the frailty of life by having us see these characters go through the most everyday tasks before they are killed? That might be the underlying reason but it doesn’t make the film any more fascinating than it would have if it was a big Hollywood production with imposed morals. It just stands as it is, unexplainable, indescribable but interestingly enough, very compelling.
Acting/Characters: The most that can be said about the acting is that the completely unknown cast does a good job walking around and waving at people. Even with that standard, some actually manage to extend some visible performances. I couldn’t find a way of splicing together the actors with the character names so I’ll just stick with the descriptions: The cream of the crop here goes to the blonde kid who is not only the most interesting character but also the most fleshed out one with a quirky personality and an alcoholic father. The most interesting characters in my opinion were the three airhead girls who actually managed to pump up some comedy and intriguing realism at the same time. On the other hand, such characters like the kid who is introduced, walks around for five minutes and gets shot or any form of exploration of the killers such as violent video games or a completely out-of-place gay kiss scene were very unnecessary.
Direction: Who else but Van Sant would attempt to pull off a film like this? I mean, this guy is like one of those kids who constantly want to play with daddy’s big gun even though he knows how dangerous it is. After doing a completely unneeded shot-by-shot remake of “Psycho” and the most boring film ever made (“Gerry”, even more boring than this one) to manage to make a film like this. His direction is very visual, his camera is omnipotent and his ego is “WHOA”!
The Movie: “Elephant” should come with a disclaimer that states “Caution: May cause extreme regularity and cause one to question life”. But even with its completely unrecognizable and unattainable style, it remains to be quite interesting and somewhat shocking. After all, in what other movie will you get to see someone walk, really walk into a far distance for minutes to come?
Starring: Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Jordan Taylor…
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