Elephant (DVD)

Gus Van Sant's "Death Trilogy" consists of three films - Gerry, Last Days, and Elephant. Elephant is the middle child of the three - a little awkward, and unsure of itself, yet the film earned wide acclaim and won the prestigious Palm d'Or at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. I must, though, admit to not being entirely convinced by Van Sant's almost pretentious stylistic strokes here. Much like his 2007 film Paranoid Park, this is painstakingly paced and far too meditative to keep the average filmgoer entertained. Even for a cineaste such as myself, it was a test, for the plot structure is indeed very clever - it deals with the lives of many young ...  Read the complete review

Elephant, loosely based on the Columbine shootings paints a portrait of the day in an American high school when two students go on a rampage by following the actions of different students. As the subject matter suggests, this is purely a sad film so don't go buying it for any manic depressives. Pre-shooting, it runs more like a documentary than a film as the cameraman follows various teenagers as they go about their mundane day in order to shine a light into the ritual of school life which it does fairly well. This collection of stalker-like sequences complete with depressing piano music makes up for more than half the film, a good 45 minutes. However, the ...  Read the complete review

Elephant is a film based on a group of students at a fictional high school in America. It shows the students going about their business in and out of school on a day a mass shooting occurs. There are popular, unpopular, gay, straight and even bulimic teenagers represented in the film. The film shows how all the people interacted thoughout the day and how the events played out. The film is thought to have been, in part, based on real life events which occured in April 1999 at Columbine High School, Colorado, USA. Although the film was released in 2003, 4 years after the Columbine massacre, the film was still highly controversial in ...  Read the complete review

I believe that this film is only for people interested in direction and cinematography. Why? Because in my opinion, those are the only interesting things about Elephant. The storyline is very boring and nothing really happens in the film until right at the end and even that is, suprisingly, fairly tedious. It's supposed to be based on the Columbine School massacre in America. And that's it. It's not a re-enactment, which would have held some interest for me. The direction and cinematography as I've said are good; some shots are very well set-up. The colours are realistic and the different scenes innovatively ...  Read the complete review