Elephant - review

Title: Elephant
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: (the best are..) John Robinson, Kristen Hicks, Bennie Dixon
Released: 2003

Here was a film that worked, and at the same time, failed. I liked the style of Gus Van Sant's Elephant- a story about the average American high-school on the day of a Columbine-style massacre. The film is mature, patient, and favours realism above all else. However I believe it's fundamental flaw was to mix this matter-of-fact approach with the more serious subject matter at hand. That is to say that I have seen many films before which took a similarly mature approach in terms of letting the story tell itself, and giving credit to the intelligence of the audience, but these films have never revolved around current social issues of such emergency. These films, 'window-films' I call them which just give you a very detached almost documentary-style glimpse into a life, are usually employed best in fictional tales, to name a few random examples that happen to spring to mind 'Hana-Bi' , 'Central Station' & 'Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud'. The only other previous occasion I can remember seeing a film in this style dealing with a real, serious problem, as opposed to 'pure' fiction, was the unwatchable trash 'kids'.

The reason I chose to review this film was because it worked- within itself, and within it's own limitations, elephant does work. I felt for the characters, and admired the camera-work, everything about the way in which it was shot made you think, bringing out the very best in the audiences observational and analytical skills. Throughout the afternoon (as this is shot in real-time..kind of) you are given a sense that life moves on, and you can't help but admire this 'ultimate realism.' At one point an unimportant character mumbles something before walking into a room full of people who yell "suprise!" We don't know what the suprise is, we don't get to see, the camera trails off in it's free pursuit of another story to tell, but life is happening, continuing, and we are constantly reminded of this. In the very next scene one of the main characters walks along the school coridoor and behind him is a janitor sweeping the floor. One thing that will also stand out is that all of the actors are not actors. They are playing themselves, and as the credits roll, you'll see that John in the film, really was a boy named John. Yes, the acting isn't the best, every now and then someone will look at the camera when they're not supposed to, but that all becomes part of the brilliance of Elephant. Van Sant clearly knows what he's doing in this respect, because the fact that everyone, young and old, seems to be playing themselves, really cancels out the fact that the acting isn't the best. Like I said, within itself, Elephant really does work as a film.

So where does it fail? Well, it fails in a more general sense, quite simply because films like this, that come along at a particularly sensitive time, when the debates and even the high-school shootings are still continuing, need to bring something, add something that wasn't there before. I did care about the characters, and when the shootings begin, you are truly affected, but... then what? The whole experience is essentially no different to those annoying health warning adverts that try to shock you into 'not doing drugs', or to 'stop smoking'. The only difference here is, this is 90 minutes long, and it doesn't really have any moral impetus or message like those annoying adverts do. We see some young people, good, interesting, real young people. Then we see them get shot, one-by-one.

What does this film achieve? If style is something to be admired within itself, then this film achieves a lot. If however, as many other great directors have said, film and, as an extension - art itself - needs to balance the style element with a responsibility to the society it serves, then this film falls short. If you have a conscience, why does it not speak to us in this film? Why does it not help us understand? We know how bad things are, we can watch the news to see what happens in a high-school shooting. As realistic and admirable as this is, if it doesn't offer us anything more than a glance into a day, then ultimately, it can only ever be just one glance into one day, without really changing or affecting that many people.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from going to see it because as I've said, it definitely has it's merits, and Van Sant is clearly a talented man, as this, and his other films suggest, but with respect, I really don't think this film is going to be remembered in the larger scheme of things.

Y.Misdaq aka Yoshi, 5th Jan 2004

-Here's the official website for the film.