Elephant (2003)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Charming and brutal

Am I Missing Something?

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

A review of this movie could easily evolve into a full fledged essay about school shootings in America, but we will have to consider that this is a work of art, a fictional depiction and not a documentary or, god forbid, a blueprint. The most disturbing aspect of the movie is the shallowness, carelessness and totally unempathetic way the perpetrators go about in preparing and then executing their hideous act with the support of a society in which mail order guns are a normality. Probably nobody goes unprepared into a sitting of this film since otherwise it would be difficult to understand why we would need to follow a bunch of high school kids going about their chores in a typical, if not mediocre high school setting with the cliques, weirdo's and good kids that have become the cliche's of American high school cinema. Of course that all changes when the shooting starts. For dramatic effect all kids that we had just gotten to accept for their juvenile awkwardness are popped off like rats in an abandoned house basement with a BB gun. Except it was an AR-15, which was then and since the tool of choice for instant infamy. Anger wells in this reviewer when considering the reason for inclusion of a dose of 'German weirdness' in the form of old Hitler footage and Beethoven sonata's as a hint of foreign influence to such atrocities instead of the innate sickness of American society. Nevertheless Gus van Sant could have followed the simple rule that movies that include the Moonlight Serenade are statistically more likely to attract higher review scores. Casting a final verdict on the movie should include the consideration if we learned anything, is it food for thought? When thinking about the fact the impact of the movie doesn't allow for a quick and snappy soundbite that the answer must be yes, it's highly disturbing, if this is how it is, it is terrible.

This movie... I probably shouldn't write this review, because I'm in English and I'm not ready to fully process what I just saw. This movie is not going to make you taller, it will not give you an A in all of your classes, it probably won't change your outlook on life, but in light of the world we live in now, with constant terrorist attacks and brutal violence between religions, beliefs, worldviews, etc. this is quite an interesting look at it... even 15 years later. Many people will swear that this movie says nothing and does nothing, but in all honesty, I think that's the point. It doesn't seem like anyone was trying to put a message in here, but it was more of an event. Think of it like someone just standing and saying, "Hello, I'm standing here." It does not try to justify what it does or what is shown and it does not try to condemn what is shown either. It's just THERE. Take it or leave it. The violence is disturbing, and I'm one of those people that watches gore and violence as much as possible for fun. I think it's because it seems real, more real than real life would present it, because just like the movie, it's just there. It's hard to say much about a movie that doesn't say much itself, but anyone that watches this will have one of two reactions, they'll love it or hate it. I happened to love it, and I hope anyone reading this does too.

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 terrible film. Unless it is meant to showcase how stupid American kids are it doesn't do anything for me. The conversations are pathetic, empty, meaningless, just as the film is...The whole build up takes up the majority of the film, the "actors" are awful. It looks like a bunch of amateurs got together, nominated another amateur as the "director" and wasted a few days trying to shoot a movie. Avoid. Now the stupid "minimum" 10 lines rule makes it really difficult to submit this because the movie is so horrible you it is very difficult to write more than what I did. and now I have 2 more lines to fill so I will also write about the lack of music it this "masterpiece". So to sum it up: this is a dreadful home movie with talentless actors, crappy camera work and shows a lack of imagination about how to tell a story.