Elephant, a 2003 movie by Gus Van Sant

Elephant by Gus Van Sant

As a general rule, it would seem that the Title Elephant comes from an English idiom "There's an elephant in a room" which refers to something so big that people do not even see and do not acknowledge the importance. I reckon that Gus Van Sant applies it to guns and their influence in young people. Some people do not recognize the extent of the problem of gun culture in the USA. It should be noted that this bloodshed show us The Power of Death in School Shoutings. 

This movie takes its cue from Columbine High School massacre back in 1999. As far as I'm concerned, what struck me most in the film was the exasperate realism who aims to the identification with all the characters. A day on a life of an American high school where students are having their daily activities or socializing. They are film from the back he follows them with long shoots showing us various types of students.  

When it comes to the atmosphere who seems very peaceful, uneventful and hazy I must admit that it also impressed me the contrast between the disconcerting un-violent atmosphere and the tragic nightmare who reminds us through these images this horrifically event. The Beethoven music plays by Alex contrast with the video game where they shoot people from the back. This show us sort of a psychopath side where the two killers carried out a drastic plan without rage, remorse or even emotion. 

Besides, what I found particularly upsetting was the lack of emotions and tension during the shooting. I don't see any difference through the innocent world of the high school student and the subdued atmosphere during the shooting. I agree up to a point that the force of this massacre is dismissed due to the unemotional point of view. It is true to say that the end of the movie is drained of any emotion and that creates and mortified atmosphere who aims to make us shiver. This lead us to wonder if the filmmaker wanted to show us the shooting in a cold blooded point of view. This may be the way that the assailants feel this shooting in a clinical sense, like a video game. 

I found it very disturbing when they entered the school carrying bags loaded with weapons and dress in paramilitary out fits and nobody is alarm.

Nevertheless what I found more shocking was at the end of the movie in the deep freeze where the jock who is established by the director as a preferential target. He decides not to show us the killing at the end but he obliges us to see the craziness of Alex who is categorically show as a cold blooded killer. 

The film suggest that these two killers were left to their own devices and they had never had the opportunity of living any emotional relationship. They decided to explore homoerotic desires before the slaughter.

 As for the film director he makes it clear that these to killers were bullied by jocks and silenced by the principal of the school. However, the killing of another nerd or even the "savior" Benny who embodies an angel-like figure that can't defeat the evil. He don't have the chance to stand against the power of death embodies by the lethal weapons. This shows that the shooter where not trying to have a revenge, because we will felt sorry for them, but their goal was to kill everyone due to the brainwashing of Neo-nazi teen group The "Parka Militia". 

Gus Van Sant opted for a indie movie in "huit clos" almost weightless, dreamy thanks to the open spaces like clouds or even desert shoots. The events are transpose into different angles, and he focus a lot in the minimalistic details who want often deliver us a poetic message. For instance, the metaphorical meaning of the clouds : "It's the calm before the storm". This movie has a rhythm very slow. Even when the school shooting began the rhythm it still the same. There is a contrast between the sound of a bird that can symbolize the calm, or peace and the mind of the killer who as divert the principal meaning turning it into a stressful and disturbing noise that make us feel a tingle of fear.   

To my mind, there's no denying that we have in front of us a disturbing poetic film who tries to preserve or remind the life who was witness before the arrival of this cold death who has erase all kind of life. The director make us witness thanks to the slow moving the life who was before the killing.

The final scene show us how the gun culture has take all slice of life. Closing with a scene in the dining room who before was overwhelmed by people. Gus Van Sant but us in a deathly and mortified atmosphere where the power of death has take over the power of life making Alex finally feeling at his place. Alex feels absorbed by his personal demons driving him to the heart of darkness. The sounds at the end and the song sang by Alex make me feel like I was inside of a schizophrenic mind. 

Last but not least, I will add that Gus Van Sant doesn't presented the killers as heroes or avengers but at the contrary they look more like crazy's teens who seemed to see the life as a virtual game where emotion doesn't exists and they had done only for their own pleasure taking with them the life of they schoolmates...

"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe if you doesn't want to be the next. Start changing the rules before it would be too late..."