Rating of
3/4
A subtle, saddening, and dreamlike experiance,
Bob Stone - wrote on 05/07/09
Watching Gus Van Sant's Elephant raises the question,what would you have done or reacted like if you had been in Columbine on that fateful day? The film follows about a half dozen high school student going through with their daily routine, when suddenly their world explodes in thier face and for the first hour or so the film is fairly uneventful. Elephant has no intention of offering the viewer answers, it's one and only explanation is that sometimes human beings snap out and explode in fits of violent rage. During the extremly surreal finale one is as confused and out of the loop as anyone else would be, had they been in the situation. Whether you like the film or you must admit that it is pitchperfect in portraying the behaviors of real teens and because of this, when the horror begins the audience is as stunned and baffled as the students and staffs of the school, being forced to witness the horrors as if they were really there, watching everything they know being attacked and destroyed. It must be noted that there is a skim ammount of character development or depth within this movie, but I ask you now, would you really want it? I for one, believe the film would be too unbearablly horrific to even sit through if I actually felt connected to these kids. Elephant is subtley horrfying,and chilling, it sneaks up behind you and sticks with you for days. One can't help but applaud Van Sant for making such a hypnotic and haunting film.
