ELEPHANT by Gus Van Sant- Page 2

[JayKid]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 12:44am

I personally heard bad things aobut this... many people I know said it was just very boring and annoying to watch. I forget what other movie I've seen that was done in like real time that I felt sucked, but that is one reason I didn't want tos ee this.

I get what it is trying to do, however, if really just kids walking around and me watching what happened in highschool... all to anticipate some shooting, I don't want to watch it. I don't watch a movie for that stupid ****. I just don't think it'd be a good movie and although I am judging before I am seeing it, I have reviews of it from friends that didn't like it (the acting also supposively sucks) and I seem to have enough of an idea of how it is done that I don't think I'd enjoy watching.

Anywayz, glad you all liked the film though, sorry for the bad words... just my opinion.

[Jane2]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 12:46am

I thought it was a pretty realistic depiction of this heinous event. I too thought the narrative style and nonchalant going on about it as just another school day really drew me in. Everything I saw was believable. HOWEVER-I have to agree with a few of the posts above which said there was nothing which helped us to understand why the boys were so motivated to these killings. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't feel their anger.

[broadway86]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 1:02am

One of my favorite films from 2003. Haunting, dreamy, and just plain fascinating.

[theatreguy]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 1:15am

I went to high school with Alex Frost (who plays the main killer guy). It was very awkward, and a bit creepy, the first time I sat down next to him in English after seeing ELEPHANT.

[ZONEACE]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 5:03am

I adored this film. The banality was so real.

As to some of the issues people have had with it.

I don't think the reason the shooting happens is important, frankly, I don't even think it was necesary. The movie is about how everyday life is not exciting, it's not interesting, it just happens.


Also, the movie was beautiful, the cinematography makes me smile.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 6:55am

The movie is about how everyday life is not exciting, it's not interesting, it just happens.

Yes but that has to somehow be communicated to the viewer in a way that is, at the very least, interesting to watch. There has to be something to make you care about the characters you're spending 70 minutes with before spending a further 5 watching them get slaughtered. As cliché piled upon cliché, it really began to bug me as I wasn't watching real people, I was watching cardboard stereotypes that I simply didn't care about. And when said stereotypes are being portrayed by actors who ranged from painfully self aware and amateur to downright hopeless, I could never get past the fact that I was watching a film and I could not wait for it to be over.

High school shootings in general and Columbine in particular could use a truly brilliant drama being created out of them. This wasn't it.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 10:58am

Thank you, pop. My feelings exactly.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 12:23pm

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I saw it with a bunch of friends in LA right when it opened. Out of the 5 of us, 4 of us hated it. But we thought we were the only 4 people as NOBODY else had a bad word to say about it. Weird.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 12:34pm

I loved this film and saw it 3 times. Each time with the same sense of dread.Each time with the same gut wrentching feel during the carnage.
The technique of following the students through their fateful morning was hypnotic. I began, to feel, halfway through the film much like I did back when I was in school. I learned the layout of the school and actually knew where the students were headed. The corridors became familiar to me. We were shown the same old faces, much like the same old faces we each saw in homeroom. The fact that the actors were untrained and self aware worked for me, what are high school students if not akward and self aware?
Were there stereotypes? Yep sure were but for every character in that film I can place a real life person I went to HS with. There is a universal feeling to this film, gave me the feeling it could happen anywhere. It is a wake up call.

[cheezedoodle]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 12:38pm

Personally I am really over Van Sants obsession with twenty year old heroin addicted street boys so I don't even bother with his stuff anymore. I used to see him around San Francisco all the time, and his work seemed to follow him home a lot...if you get what I mean.