Holy Elephant! Stick a fork in my eye! This film was excruciatingly slow. 81 minutes total and about half of that time was used to watch the backs of heads as they walk across a large field, through a building, then through another building. Ultimately, this film comes off as voyeuristic; like a reality show before editing. You watch as cameras follow various people through an average day at a typical American high school.
Considering the creation of this film was inspired by Columbine, you can safely assume that there will be a shooting at some point...predictably the ending. There's a morbid curiosity to watch the ending. It keeps you intrigued to the point of bearing the moments of nothingness. I actually found the characters to be interesting, even though the filming of it was rather amateur. If I didn't know what the movie was about and what was inevitably going to happen, it would not have kept my attention and I would've turned it off after ten minutes. I understand its a low-budget piece, but it was produced by Diane Keaton and directed by Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy, Good Will Hunting) so I guess I expected a lot more. They tried too hard to keep it "indy" and successfully turned low budget into low quality.
Elephant has won many awards, including Best Director at Cannes. The only thing I can think of is that they had an edited version. Like when Josh had all the commercials edited out of the Super Bowl in Big, they edited out all the pointless walking and staring. Either that or they were sleeping through most of it!
Part of what is missing is the motivation behind the major act. I don't expect movies to spell everything out, but this one makes you conclude from too many assumptions. Van Sant oozes arrogance and patronizes the audience. Its like walking into an art gallery and all the haughty people turn their noses up at you because you don't understand the "art" behind two dots on a large sheet of white paper.
Elephant, as a short, for a high school project? Great! As a directorial and cinematographically acclaimed film? Not even close. The trailer is a much better film. Just watch the trailer and the last 20 minutes of the movie and you'll be good to go.
On a scale of 1-10, I give Elephant a 3.5
with distinction: Highly overrated.
Scene Spotlight: Benny.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363589/?ref_=sr_3
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