Distributor:
MADMAN-AV-CHANNEL Certificate: MA15+ | 81
Minutes Available to buy Directors: Gus
Van Sant Extras: Yes Reviewer: Mark
ANYONE
IN IT WE KNOW?
Alicia
Miles, John Robinson, Timothy Bottoms, Alex Frost, Jordan Taylor
"I've
never saw such a vile and beautiful day"
WHAT’S
IT ABOUT THEN?
A day in the life of a group of high school students,
not your average cinema high
school though but one where life
is hard, lonely and traumatic
and a high school that before
the day is out will descend into
bloody violence.
SO
IS IT ANY GOOD?
Mindblowing
look at high school life and how tiny incidents become huge and explode
into violence, using the Columbine shooting tragedy as his backdrop, Van
Sant's superbly realised film is so naturalised yet eschews the would be
in your faceness of hand held cameras for a super smooth steadicam ride
of Kubrick proportions.
What
makes the conclusion of the movie all the more shocking (you know it's
coming as the two son to be shooters touch all the signposts, gun buying
on the internet, Nazi memorabelia etc) is the understated way events
have unfolded beforehand,
it's
almost like we are eavesdropping as the camera roams the school but in
truth this underplaying helps us connect with the situation, the score
is also an important part of the movie with its muted playing and
sometimes discordant overtones and then total silence, it's disquieting
but very effective. Thankfully much of the endplay is left off camera
but I can guarantee that once seen Elephant is one of those movies that
will stay with you for a long time.
ANY
SPECIAL FEATURES?
Featurette going behind the scenes of the movie called
On The Set of Elephant: Rolling Through Time, the theatrical trailer and
a filmography for Van Sant.
TRIVIA
Van
Sant took the title of the movie from Alan Clarke's superb 1980's TV
play about Northern Ireland. Almost all of the kids in the movie are non
professionals.
