Elephant

          This Gus Van Sant-directed indie is about the ordinary lives of high school students in Portland, Oregon: until two boys decide to go on a killing spree at their school. I have very conflicted feelings about this movie. On the one hand, the cinéma vérité way of shooting the movie was interesting with fluid tracking shots and barely a need for editing. However, since there was not exactly a script and Gus preferred using all actual teens with no acting experience, it seems as if there was not a whole lot of preparation for the film, and it definitely did not take very long to shoot. Not to mention that Gus lives in Portland, so in my mind he basically just casually strolled across the street every day to the "set," which was actually just a regular high school. (Yes, I am oversimplifying; if it were that simple then I would have been a star by now. I am just comparing the effort to professional movies.) While we are on the subject, I may add that I completely understand that these factors surely saved a lot of money, but at the same time it seems a bit lazy to me, especially since Gus had just experienced the success of a blockbuster (Good Will Hunting), which shows that he had some money by 2003 when Elephant was released. Another topic that throws me is that the inspiration for this movie came from Columbine. No, the characters were not directly based on the Columbine kids, but it was inspired by the tragedy. After watching a few interviews, I felt that Gus made light of the incident, especially by making a work of art that was meant to entertain. How can he expect me to enjoy watching something that was sparked by such a tragic incident in American history? Now, if this had just been some movie made before the tragedy, then to be quite honest it is magnificent. Having the real (and cheap) teenagers made this movie so utterly realistic that the whole hour-long setup of all the characters made the actual shootings so real and chilling, because by that time you feel like you know them, which hurts tremendously. Although Gus says that images are shown to suggest reasons why the two kids decide to buy guns and shoot people at school, I did not see any passion in the characters' eyes or body language whatsoever. Not even a little bit. Nonetheless a little twist at the end is very sick and shows you what a psycho one of the two killers was. Even the credits were painful for me with the somber music and the dull yet still ordinary sky after such a disgusting scene. I also thought it was really weird that most of the actors used their real first names for their characters. I get that it made it easier for the kids to get to know one another and ad lib everything, but still, that is pretty sick. Like I said, I probably would not have these grossed-out feelings if Gus had not said something along the lines of "after a fascinating incident like Columbine, nobody ever has the guts to make a movie about it." That is what I got from his interview -- which, by the way, he stayed in his house for since he does not seem to like to move around a lot -- watch Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview to which I have been referring and tell me what you think in the comments section below. I do think Gus is a good director, I just think this movie is a bit too real for fiction. However, it is not too late to convince me otherwise. :)

          By the way, if someone could please tell me who is on the poster above and why that would be appreciated. It definitely looks like the bleach-blonde guy, but it looks like the girl from the vending machine room (who was barely in the movie at all). Why?