Trailer Elephant by Gus Van Sant

[ZUBi]

just saw it too (interesting in point of deja-vu's scenes).

cause & verdict of the movie:
IMO, stupid US politics to the guns (law)...

[chris3177]

Just saw this as well. Simply stunning. Very realistic of high school life and what causes these kids to snap.

And yes, US gun laws is extremely flawed.

[bvh2003]

Originally posted by trailergod
just saw the movie, well it really has nothing to do with the Columbine High School massacre, but it seems to base on it, its sort of a "study" as to why these things happen.

I don't really agree. He's just showing a lot of things that might or might not have anything to do with it all. And at the same time he dismisses any theory that it's because of this or that, and sort of points out that there's others that experience a lot of the same things and don't go killing everybody in sight.

Originally posted by trailergod
What really is so impressive is the way it was shot, the point of view we see from these kids.

I wonder if it's intentional, that it's somehow suppsoed to make you think of a video game.

Originally posted by trailergod
i just saw one of the most "chilling" movies, its very emotional and very disturbing.

Part fo what is so upsetting is that Van Sant uses a lot of movie techniques/cliches, builds up expectations and then blows them to smithereens -- like when the geek girl gets shot in the library, you don't expect it because the plan was to kill the jocks, not those that are in the same boat -- without offering a satisfying ending, much like real life.

But unfortunately for Van Sant, his movie comes in a year with several great books about a similar theme (DBC Pierre, Coupland), plus there's City Of God/Cidade De Deus (which blew me away), and there's the actual Columbine footage in Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine overlayed with the calls by tv channels to 911 wanting to get scoops and interviews.

Still, I totally recommend Elephant, and I'm glad that over here (Belgium) several sponsors worked together to make sure the movie also played for several weeks at Kinepolis, the biggest chain of movie theatres which most of the time has no interest in any movie that isn't gonna make them lots of money. (And thus you get the irony of them talking about Michael Moore's next movie in their glossy free monthly magazine, while they haven't bothered to play Bowling For Columbine!)