Review of Elephant (2003) by Pinattar — 04 Aug 2012

This is one of those movies that is not for everyone. This is a very "directorial" movies, by that I mean you will either like the style and find it interesting or you will dislike it and find it extremely boring.

I really liked the style that Gus Van Sant went for. The the various point of views of the characters, the slow pacing and the improvised dialogue all added to the movie, it made it fell very organic.

Also the slow pacing made you fell very comfortable, almost like it was trying to make you let you guard down for what we all know is inevitably going to happen. Also the slow pacing and random people talking and thing happening around the focus character just reinforce the feeling of realness.

Because in reality highschool is like that, it is boring, it is slow, things happen around you that you don't affect you or you participate in, and that also makes what happens even more devastating. As for the acting, it was all very good especially considering that this was most (if not all) of their first time acting.

Alex Frost was definitely the stand out for me, as was Eric Deulen. Also the movies also isn't preachy, it doesn't force anything down your throat, it just presents what happens and leaves you to make your own decisions on why things happened.

And if you do watch it, keep in mind that the majority of the movie takes place within the period of about ten minutes. 8.