No more Counter-Strike for everybody reading this!
I saw Elephant yesterday. Here's the verdict:
The cinematography was excellent, the camera moves were a joy to watch and the choreography of the mise-en-scene (everything you see on screen) was very well planned out and executed. Most of the time.
Some of the time movements that characters made onscreen were too forced or obvious in their intention to draw our attention to an object or to provoke the next line of dialogue, such as when one of the killers is writing on his notepad and walks up next to a girl and practically shoves it in her face so she'll ask "what're you doing" then he just says "you'll see..." and walks away.
This is probably because Gus Van Sant used non-professional actors which I usually like. Films like Breathless and George Washington have used non-professionals to great effect. This film didn't warrant the use of non-professionals in my opinion. The bad acting and the awkward actions in front of the camera were distracting and drew the viewer out of the film.
The characters were also all stereotypical. This can either be good or bad depending on how you look at it. It could either make it open enough that this could be any school and you can probably relate to at least one of them. Or, this could just be a shortcoming on the part of the writer to develop realistic characters with some sort of psychological happenings going on inside their heads. I'm leaning towards the bad.
Okay, now the big thing. Why even have this movie be about a school shooting? Van Sant does very little to delve into any reasoning or rationalization of the event and I think that's on purpose. Possibly to let people come to their own conclusions. But, he doesn't give the audience enough to work with and also, why would anybody need to go to a movie to start thinking about something like this. The news footage we all saw on the day the Columbine shootings occurred was enough to do that. This film brings nothing new to the table except maybe putting in our heads what a massacre at a school might look like.
I felt that the only reason the film is so "terrifying" or "unforgettable" (words gleaned from Rotten Tomatoes) is that it's ABOUT A FREAKING SCHOOL SHOOTING. Of course it's going to be disturbing! I don't think Van Sant did a very good job of building the tension, I think it was the subject matter that did it for him. It was us knowing what was going to happen that made us nervous not any sort of filmmaking techniques Van Sant might've utilized or created or whatever.
Anyway, the film isn't bad. It's not, really. Like I said, the camera work is great, the structure is fantastic, how he jumps around in time so seamlessly and makes it clear to the audience where you are, it's not confusing at all, and the sound design is pretty good at moments too, although there are a couple questionable moments.
Gus Van Sant is starting to intrigue me though. He's done a shot for shot remake of a classic film(Psycho), a film about two guys walking around in the desert (Gerry), a Hollywood film(Finding Forrester), and now Elephant. Van Sant seems to be toying with the idea of what a film is. I mean Psycho, does it even really count as being a new film? It's not even just a remake but a shot for shot remake. And two guys walking around in the desert... anyway, I could go somewhere with the above idea but I have to leave for class VERY soon. I think the level that Elephant succeeds on is a stylistic one. The style of this film was really great and the film was crafting excellently, unfortunately I felt that it was lacking in substance and packed an emotional punch that felt a little phoney.
Oh yeah, the two killers are seen playing a first person shooter! Please.
I also saw C.H.U.D. last night. I was a little let down, but my standard for good-bad movies is so high now after No Retreat No Surrender.
Death Cab for Cutie concert tonight!
