After viewing Elephant (2003) by Gus Van Sant and before starting to write about it I elaborate on some of my blogs reference (believed Babel had dedicated an entry, Lapore the thread mentioned the more general issue of extreme violence and its relation to narrative art) because felt the need to find - in whom I think I have taken measurement - a mark, a foothold to begin . A Palme d'Or at Cannes and quoted on the fly so should mean something. First, Elephant is a hypnotic film, damn hypnotic. Input, the initial two-thirds of the film up a lengthy prologue - made from flat-sequence - of something that in fact the movie does not explain, but that only exists in our head . Most of the time the camera just follows a few students on the move by the institute: the principle misleads because we do not know who they are or what they do or what they want, after a few minutes stroll endless therefore threatens to bore, but wake up at the end interest when the viewer realizes that many of these walks start, intersect or end with an event referred to in a previous sequence. Elephant takes time to start introducing meaning in the images, and the immediate effect of this narrative strategy is a mixture of fascination and forgetfulness that can be taken both as a genius as a senseless waste beginner. Secondly, it is only in our head like a planet Mercury is difficult to see in the sky because it is too close to a blinding light, it is impossible to see Elephant as officially meant to be: a fiction film whose resemblance to reality is "purely coincidental" (he says in the credits, that's why I stayed until the end). And that is without Columbine events of April 20, 1999 this film would not exist. Van Sant knows, the technical and artistic know, the critics and the public know, all know ... but it makes for some strange and / or elaborate reason, like the elephant that mention the title (the English word elephant in the room is used to describe huge problems we all ignore the way).
Elephant concatenation shown in those universes in which adolescents simply do not exist higher (in the film, the only adults that appear are the workers of the institute and the father of one of the students. They are there as if they were part of the building but do nothing or interest students) and young people spend their time roaming the halls of school. Moving from one place to another, meet colleagues and semidesconocidos, chat about everything and anything, they make their way ... Such a characterization seems to me a very accurate approximation of what may become the universe to a teenager (Lapore 're right, these planes are almost an embodiment of adolescence), at certain ages or in certain circumstances, there comes a time when not need to be a mindless or a madman to have a sesgadísima perception of reality, inhabit a mental world where only fit so tight our own desires and inexplicable hatred. That look that can not / want / know to look beyond the camera portraying the long shots during the first part sustained : a universe that is limited to covering high school, only spaces that make sense for those who inhabit every day. From there to believe that beyond these walls there is nothing very strong.
The film is not at any time to justify or explain the actions or behaviors portrayed, merely show and let the fascination of the images make up for the lack of information (this is the millimeter designed and I attribute it entirely to know how Van Sant), allowing gradually, recurrences and a story emerges matches. The significance makes its appearance near the end, when events reach what we all know will happen. Only then the camera and the narrative leave the school to show the two protagonists at home the day before chosen: we see them playing video games (violent, of course), watching a documentary on Hitler, playing Beethoven on the piano feelingly, showering together in the morning ... All together composing the indirect exposure of more simplistic reasons, crude and painful whole film, as if this string of topical enough to explain everything that will follow. After this one slip, Van Sant takes up the story with skill, chance, provocation, fate, give meaning to the walks and talks and views of each of the characters. Reactions brave, foolhardy, pathetic, stupid, desperate ... all makes sense - significant or trivial, gives both, but that's good - once they know what ends up happening on that fateful morning. Finally the images just writing a story designed carefully, not with the crystal clarity of the classic story, but with the advantage of a more experimental style able to hook to the body and mind drag. I thought the end was explicitly out of the film, which would make it more disturbing, and so had in mind another title for this entry: "the day before the violence" . Elephant
seems a brave film because he dares to experiment with narrative with a real event that American society had to digest almost , equally brave Diane Keaton, who contributed money to a project as controversial on the role, and just as brave HBO for showing once again that bet of formats and topics are not always comfortable for the viewer.
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