Review of Elephant (2003) by Tor M — 09 Feb 2017

Mostly done with amateur actors and a very sad film about school shooting. Disturbing, but very delicatly put to screen. This is an haunting experience, that even won an award at Cannes. People are slaughtering it for being boring, but for me this is not ment to be an entertaining piece in the first place.

I have not seen too many Van Sant films, but this is probably the best effort from him that I have seen. Michael Haneke's "Der siebente Kontinent" is more depressive still a similiar film - but this is slightly better for me, especially if I keep the killing part of that film in mind. I absolutely dig the constant movement, long tracking shots done with steadycam. It's also really nice with several scenes done many times with different perspectives - naturaly many shots done, being as identical as the last one as possible.

Nice and short, good dialogue - and a fantastic way of storytelling. Horrible action, you know it will happen, but you don't know how or who that will get killed. A great final scene too. Not easy to catch the title, but I've read that the two killers are "Elephants in a room". That makes sense, I guess.

8 out of 10 high schools cafeterias.