Tuesday 17 June 2008

Elephant [2003]



Gus Van Sant returned to the independent low-budget auteur-driven filming of his earlier days with this surreal deconstruction of a tragedy that seems to have become a part of the American way of living. The movie follows, like an impersonal observer, a few stray, mundane high school students. Everything seems to be normal until two of the lot decide to get even with the oh-so-cruel society, in a manner similar to the shocking Columbine High School disaster. Matters are compounded by easy access to guns, severely detached existence of the two boys about to do the unthinkable, and an ever-lingering presence of violence just below the veneer of civility. By refusing to provide any easy answer or taking any side, or for that matter by leaving the thin line between what’s good and what’s not for the viewers to fathom, the content has been made even more unsettling by this bold, unconventional movie.









Director: Gus Van Sant
Genre: Drama/Existential Drama/Experimental Film/Ensemble Film
Language: English
Country: US

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