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 Elephant (2003)
Director:
Gus Van Sant
Stars: Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson
Release Company:
Fine Line Features
MPAA Rating: R
Official Site
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My Own Private Idaho
Poster
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As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau's ideas about simplifying have truly been taken to heart by Gus Van Sant in 2003. In a digital world gone mad with frenzied tabloid reporting, terrorist threats, chaotic war/peacemaking efforts, and senseless violence, it turns out that two of the year's more memorable movies are Van Sant's “minimalist” movies—Gerry and Elephant. Inspired by the recent slaughter at Columbine high school, the latter project achieves profundity—not through didactic Oliver Stone style exposé—but by presenting an ordinary day in the life of various students as prelude to unthinkable tragedy.
When Van Sant won both the Best Director award and Golden Palm at Cannes this year, he was genuinely surprised that his experimental little film was so highly honored. It's not an "easy" film to appreciate; in fact, it may need to simmer a while after viewing before you realize its strengths. At least it worked that way for me. I did a year end blitz of as many of the highly acclaimed limited release films as I could muster in L.A. last weekend, yet the one that continues to flash back over the past week has been Elephant.
Using mostly non-professional high school student actors, Van Sant fashions a Portland neo-realist drama, relying a great deal on an expertly handled steadi-cam to non-judgmentally track its subjects through the high school hallways. Only totally clueless viewers don't suspect the eventual violence initially, for the same reasons that it's virtually impossible to find completely impartial juries in high profile cases, but Van Sant does provide early indicators that a pair of camouflaged students represent fictionalized versions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. But it's neither their story, nor that of any individual protagonists. Long before the media made psychotic villains out of the killers, martyrs out of the victims, and fed off the tragedy to explain the current ills of our nation's youth, Columbine was just like any other public high school in America. And that's what Van Sant uses as his canvas (besides his obligatory Oregon cloudy vistas, dynamically recorded with time-lapse photography).
Setting the stage with a crane shot that follows a careening car grazing parked cars on a residential street, we first meet blond-haired John (John Robinson) uncomfortably riding shotgun as his intoxicated father (Timothy Bottoms—one of few actors with a lengthy resume here) attempts to return to the school after a lunch reunion. Wearing a striking yellow T-shirt, John contrasts with the drab wardrobes of his peers and with the institutional gray corridors to establish his role as a potential protagonist. He's also the sole student who relates positively to the various factions at the school—from the administration to the popular crowd to the artistic to the slackers and alienated. His moment with the school photographer becomes an anchor, around which events are repeated from various viewpoints just before the violence erupts.
Viewers expecting explanations for the massacre only set themselves up for disappointment. No matter how many pundits theorize that today's culture of violent video games and heavy metal music contributed heavily to the killers' alienation, there are no easy answers and Van Sant successfully avoids championing any. Instead, he only sketches in all the cliché possibilities for Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen)—latch key children, school bullies, sexuality conflicts, easy access to automatic weapons, rock music, and violent video games (illustrated with a bloody version of Gerry's Matt Damon and Casey Afflect being blasted over the Great Salt Lake flats). Refusing to offer a neatly resolved formulaic explanation or preach obvious morality, Van Sant provokes much more thought by objectively recording slices of high school life.
Inter-titles give identity to featured students before the camera follows them through their routines. Many could be stereotypical in most directors' hands—the nebbish girl who avoids exposing her unattractive body in PE class, the trio of socialites who jointly practice bulimia after lunch, the “Ken and Barbie” couple (staples of every high school). Van Sant's camera refuses to get too close to any of these students, giving none of the characters more importance than others. At one point it appears that an athletic African American student is poised to play the traditional hero role, but this is not to be. That would be far too easy, in a world of 30-second television commercials and Hollywood fantasies where the most complex problems are easily resolved.
Instead, Van Sant's bare bones take on Columbine ranks among the most haunting and important films of the year. Deceptively simple and running a brief 81 minutes, Elephant won't play to mainstream audiences expecting entertainment and resolution. But viewers looking for intelligent cinema can find a measure of satisfaction in Van Sant's latest creative project. Be warned, however, that the film may not strike you favorably immediately afterwards—judging from my experience and what likely happened to many of the stunned audience after its devastating finale. Once again, Thoreau's concepts about simplicity are brought to light, as Van Sant ingeniously explores previously unexplored complexities with a bare bones cinematic project.
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