Elephant is a film by Gus Van Sant, director of My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting and Drugstore Cowboy amongst others. It won the Palm D’Or and Best Director prizes at Canes in 2003.
None of which means a damn thing to me.
Get it straight – I review what I see, not the back of the box, or the directors career, or the Academies recommendations. So I’m writing this review whilst watching the move for the second time on DVD, and I’m going to give you a live feed of impressions and opinion. Don’t fret, I’m not going to ruin the movie – I’m going to try very hard not to talk much about the plot at all as, again, I’m not reviewing the script or screenplay. What I am going to give you is one self confessed film geek opinion.
Elephant is a class act, let me start by saying, and the clues are there from the opening shot of a skyline as day turns to night and a game unfolds off camera. The sound design is really exceptional, and you have to view this in 5.1 to fully appreciate just how fine a job someone has done with this. The camera work is also exceptional throughout – although those of you who splashed out on widescreen may be a little grumpy at the 4:3 aspect ratio – it’s an HBO movie, and therefore filmed for TV. Of course what this means is that it’s not pan and scan, so you’re not actually losing anything off the sides, but it still feels a little odd.
What is so great about the camera work? Well, there’s the way it’s used for character introduction – the camera just sticks to a character and follows them, for minutes at a time, as they walk through their life and interact with others. When a new scene starts the view remains fixed until a new subject comes into focus, and then the camera moves once more. It’s all stedycam stuff and very gracefully done, and various distances are used at different times to synch with the mental or emotional state of the person being filmed. Slow-mo is also used very sparingly to fantastic effect, for emphasis of moments. The constant filming over peoples shoulders also manages to build a sense of tension that’s been hardwired into us by countless teen horror movies – the angle of the stalking killer, only without the shaky handheld work and heavy breathing. I’m making this sound much more intrusive and artificial than it actually is, this is an incredibly naturalistic piece, with some of the most real acting and dialogue you are likely to see in a movie.
There’s another aspect to the camera work that builds atmosphere – this is really claustrophobic filmmaking. The movie is mostly set in a school, and the corridors and classrooms mean that walls are ever present, framing the shots. This is particularly effective when we follow a character into the building from a playing field, and the open space is replaced by artificial light and a sense of confinement (and the camera closes right in behind the subject, accentuating the moment). When a character moves from inside to outdoors, there’s also a moment of white-light blindness, creating a subconscious feeling of moving between worlds. This is not an accident. This is very careful and skilled film making.
Something that also comes to your attention about 10 – 12 minutes in is that we’re not running strictly on a linear time frame here. An event that occurs when following one character re-occurs in the background while following another character later. This helps clue you into the fact that you’re seeing the events of this morning from a number of perspectives as you are introduced to new characters. Later, as the movie develops, you begin to realise that all these different narratives stop at the same linear point – a fact that further increases the mental tension. I need to say again that this is all done very subtly indeed – you feel the dread building, but it takes at least a second viewing to really appreciate just how the effect is achieved. This is not Pulp Fiction – it’s way more understated than that. Tarantino is all about screaming at you with every shot how good he is (and he is good) – this is an entirely more secure and confident (not to mention more mature) piece of work. The dialogue is so real – people talk over each other, interrupt, dry up - and it’s this total authenticity that makes it utterly compulsive viewing, even though for most of the movie almost nothing of any consequence appears to be happening.
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Again, the use of sound is just phenomenal, particularly subtle variances in ambient sound that help lead the mood, as well as the way the actors' speech volume varies as the camera roams wide and then close. It really does make you realise just how lazy the sound design for most movies is, and just how good this stuff can sound when used intelligently. You begin to feel like you’re a ghost moving through this high school, and the same impulses that make reality TV such a guilty pleasure for so many is part of what’s at work here – this is slice of life stuff that you’ve rarely seen on screen before, or at least not filmed with this kind of grace and skill. Coupled with the unexplainable building tension and you’re pretty much glued to your seat for the duration. It’s also noteworthy that there’s no score to speak of. The film is not totally without music – there is precisely one piece of famous piano music that is used to quite fantastic effect, but for the most part, the scoring is made up by using and subtly manipulating ambient sound. And it’s done brilliantly.
Something else I need to make clear – this film is a story. It’s not one of those art house things were it’s all impressions and nothing gets resolved, though it may seem to be playing that way at first. At a certain point in the movie (and this point may be different for different people) there is a moment of realisation that this is building to something dramatic, that there is a definite course of events that are going to unfold, something profoundly disturbing and violent. This is a haunting movie, and it will stay with you for a long time. When you finally pass the moment that all the narratives have previously stopped at, and the clock starts to roll forwards, you will remain utterly gripped until, and possibly far beyond, the credits rolling.
This is not an exploitation movie. This is not a feel good movie. This is not a laugh out loud movie. This is a painful movie. This is a challenging movie. This is a brilliant movie.
This is a brilliant movie. Just don’t even try to leave your brain at the door, and don’t expect to sleep well afterwards. Do expect to be moved. Do expect to be hurt. According to the back of the box, someone at the Guardian called this movie Van Sant’s masterpiece. I haven’t seen his other movies, but this one is just that.
The DVD special features are sparse – aside from scene selection and sound settings (did I mention the 5.1?) you have a 10 minute interview with the director, the theatrical trailer and an all-too-brief making of called ‘on the set of Elephant’. Oh, and some adverts for some other stuff, but I don’t consider trailers for other movies to be so much a ‘special feature’ as an ‘annoyance’. I also think this movie would have been ideal fodder for a director’s commentary, possibly even a cast one as well, and with its relatively short running time (78 minutes) there must surely have been room on the disk. It’s a glaring omission, and I give the special features part of the package 4 out of 10. But the movie is the real special feature, and to my mind it’s very special indeed.
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