♥♥♥♥♥♥
+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best High School Movie of the Year + Best Societal Critique of the Year + Best True-Crime Movie of the Year + Best Youth Movie of the Year + Most Deserved Hit of the Year
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| A Korean poster for Gus Van Sant's Elephant, which combines youth's exciting promise of romance with the depths of despair as outlined in a school corridor with a target shooting plate superimposed |
Elephant examines the lives of the teenagers in an average American high school, where two students are about to carry out a massacre.
Inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, in which two students killed 12 other students and a teacher and injured 21 others before committing suicide, Elephant breaks the taboo of depicting teen mayhem not by swimming in blood and anguish but with an intimately observed and very quiet, but no less stirring portrayal. This makes it an ideal film in trying to focus on the devastation and piece together some kind of understanding of the similar, grisly tragedies that have regrettably taken place several times since as well.
The title is a tribute to the same-titled 1989 BBC short film by Alan Clarke, which tells of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland in a similar style, and is also an allusion to the parable of the blind men and the elephant, in which each blind man describes the being and draws different conclusions based on which part of the animal he touched.
Kentuckian master writer-director Gus Van Sant (Milk (2008)) has made a sensitive and provocative film here, brilliantly thought-provoking, at times beautiful and at other times grim. Definitely not one to be missed!
Related post:
Gus Van Sant: Promised Land (2012) or, Let's Get Your Small Town A-fracka-lackin'!
2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
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| John Robinson (Looking (2014), TV-series) in Gus Van Sant's Elephant |
Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: 10 mil. $
= Box office success
[Elephant premiered 18 May (Cannes) and runs 81 minutes. It is the middle film in Van Sant's Death trilogy, which also comprises Gerry (2002) and Last Days (2005). Van Sant first thought he would make a factual TV movie of the Columbine High massacre, but was later inspired to make something not so directly factual. Shooting took place in Portland, Oregon with the mostly amateur actors improvising extensively. The film opened #36 in 6 theaters to 93k $ and peaked at #26 and in 38 theaters (different weeks) in North America, where it grossed 1.2 mil. $ (12 % of the total gross). The biggest market was France with 4.4 mil. $ (44 %), and the third biggest Italy with 1 mil. $ (10 %). The film won 3 Cannes awards, including the Palm d'Or and the Best Director award. It was also nominated for a César award (France's Oscar) and two Independent Spirit Awards. Roger Ebert agreed with Film Excess and awarded it 4/4 stars. The 2005 Red Lake shootings in Minnesota had a connection with Elephant in that the 16 year-old shooter, who killed 9 and injured 5 people before committing suicide, had watched the film 17 days prior to his misdeeds. Elephant is fresh at 72 % with a 7.1 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Elephant?
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