Review of Elephant (2003) by Jason V — 20 Nov 2011

Unflinching fictionalised account of the Columbine high-school massacre. It is terrifying in its portrayal - not so much for the graphic violence, but for the conscious decision to offer no psychological insight into why it happens, leaving us only with the everyman hypothesis. There are forensic pointers in the killers 24 hours preceding the shooting - an interest in nazism, violent video games, awkwardly burgeoning homosexuality, the availability of weapons on the internet - but these are presented merely as events in a day that later includes violence without regret or reason.

The directorial vision is assured - extended static shots capture slice-of-life reality awkward framed as if caught on CCTV, the same trick employed in "Funny Games" to heighten reality. Long tracking shots and ghost-rides put us in the first person, but without seeing the actors face we are free to populate with our own emotions. Scenes play out of temporal sequence and frequently intersect. The overall effect of the stylised direction is to lead us to a sense of dissociation, almost anaesthetised, which seems to mirror the perpetrators state of mind.

It is technically interesting, and some may say it is a brave way to approach the subject matter, but how can you not end up being suspicious of the tricks employed and wanting to feel more? But Van Sant will not allow more emption into his film - even a father, on finding his son alive in front of a burring building, can do nothing but touch his boy faintly on the elbow. No hugs, No tears in his stark take of end-of-millenium society. Van Sants thesis appears to be that the modern world has lost its ability to emote and connect, and here he wants to hold up the mirror and show us where it is leading, where it has already led.