Gus Van Sant, Elephant
08.08.05Filed Under: Filmsand tagged Drama, Mockumentary, Politics, Realism, Violence
A film which takes its cue from the various high school shootings in the US, but unlike documentaries like Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine there is no direct indictment of anyone or anything other than the culture in general. The film has no intentions of answering any questions or investigating what went wrong in the specific cases. In its quiet, and therefore deeply disturbing, way the film simply shows events at a fictional high school, presenting different kids at school and the everyday things they do.
It is precisely this strategy which makes the film so successful; many of the things which occur at the school are troubling. One kid has a drunk father, one refuses to wear shorts, three young girls eat lunch quite naturally and then go to the toilets to throw up, just as naturally so as not to gain weight. It is in this same natural light that the two kids order weapons and calmly go over their plans to shoot as many as possible, while having as much fun as possible.
The film itself is slow-paced, lulling the spectator into a false sense of security, but also providing a distinct, and very strong, sense of realism and reality. While the shifts in time may at first seem difficult to navigate, they quickly become second nature and the long, sedative tracking shots of students walking from one place to another present the spectator with the sense that this could simply be a documentary. The lack of any dramatic music heightens this impression, and when we are confronted with the two kids practicing their aim in the garage it is just as objective, and undramatical as the rest of the film.
It is just this forceful denial of typical dramatic elements which makes the film so alarming and iimpressive. While it is short, it gets under your skin and the objective style kept throughout the killings are very disturbing.
Read Neera Scott’s “Sublime Anarchy in Gus Van Sant’s Elephant.”
Leave a Reply
Subscribe to comments feed (this is global, not just for this entry)
