X
- 2003
- R
- Fine Line Features
- 1 h 21 m
- 2003
- R
- Fine Line Features
- 1 h 21 m
Summary An inside look at an American high school on what appears to be an ordinary day.
Directed By: Gus Van Sant
Written By: Gus Van Sant
- 2003
- R
- Fine Line Features
- 1 h 21 m
- 2003
- R
- Fine Line Features
- 1 h 21 m
Elephant
70
7.2
Where to Watch
Summary An inside look at an American high school on what appears to be an ordinary day.
Directed By: Gus Van Sant
Written By: Gus Van Sant
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 37 Critic Reviews
70
68% Positive
25 Reviews
25 Reviews
27% Mixed
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
5% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 37 Critic Reviews
70
68% Positive
25 Reviews
25 Reviews
27% Mixed
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
5% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Makes the Columbine shootings seem both abstract yet more painful and vivid. It also gets you excited all over again about the things movies can do.
The exquisitely exact photography and sound design represent the highest level of craft of Van Sant's career.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 105 User Ratings
7.2
74% Positive
78 Ratings
78 Ratings
13% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
12% Negative
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 105 User Ratings
7.2
74% Positive
78 Ratings
78 Ratings
13% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
12% Negative
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
Don't let the title fool you. The movie doesn't have elephant in it, but it has a deep meaning to it that will make your feel like mash after thinking about it to long.
The story is about high school violence that unfolds on an ordinary school day, inside an American high school, filled with schoolwork, football, gossip and socializing. For each of the students we meet, high school is a different experience: stimulating, friendly, traumatic, lonely, hard.
Elephant is loosely based on the school shooting in 1999 known as Columbine High School massacre with the shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. When I say loosely I really mean loosely because this isn't base on a true story bullsh't that you always get in movies, no it's actually Gus Van Sant wanted to make a movie relating to the biggest school massacre of all time and showing loneliness and depression due to bully and the big things around them which later ended violently.
Now this movie isn't for anyone and those's who are expecting the first, second and third act or just a simple movie, well your not going to get some of that. The ending without giving anything away ended in a way that I felt loads of people are saying to themselves "What the hell, what was that about? what the hell did I just watch and why did it end like that?". I won't lie but I took me time to think over the ending and after doing some research I think I got it, but if I have to explain it to you means spoiling it for you and I like people to go into a movie with only knowing the story and that's it.
Gus Van Sant directed this movie in a way that it has a depressing and lonely feel to it at time or maybe it's just me, but anywhere he directed this movie excellently and probably my second favorite movie from him.
The long shot takes and the fact the movie is set in one day and the different day the characters have I thought it was brilliant and a smart move to do. To be honest I didn't notice this until late on in the movie.
For problems I didn't really have any. The acting was all good, the directing as I said before was filmed top notch and the fact that movie leaves you hanging cold cold.
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Is it, the debate asks, a truly substantial work or just a stylish cop-out? Well, for once, I'm voting with the French.
A haunting elegy on the unpredictability of life. Never knowing what the next minute might bring is the elephant in all our lives.
Flagrantly artistic and transfixed by its own enigma, Elephant is strongest on evoking a succession of specific, "empty" moments and weakest on motivation.
As lead Columbine investigator Kate Battan has herself put it, “Everybody wants a quick answer. They want an easy answer so that they can sleep at night and know this is not going to happen tomorrow.” And now they have Gus Van Sant's Elephant.
A braggart piece of empty exhibitionism.
Gus Van Sant--A **** genius. This is one of the greatest movies that he's done. And that would be saying a lot, considering his track record. It's just brilliant.
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it disturbs me as to how many of those "users" who reviewed this film did so only at face value, and did nothing more than judge it by it's superficial exterior without giving any thought of it's social commentary. Maybe they'd forgotten that typical high school tropes (once viewed as benign) had taken a dramatic and violent left turn over the course of the last 30 years. Maybe they've forgotten the dirty ramifications of our countries past and flippant attitude pertaining the law of guns (using the second amendment as the proverbial crutch to further purify their agenda). Maybe, and just maybe, a movie like 'Elephant' gives supporters of lax gun laws another reason to cry bloody murder, re-thrown back towards the film industry. Who knows. regardless, there is a story to tell in Gus Van Sant's shocking (though cathartic) tale of a typical (or "typically violent") day in america's public school **** for once, it doesn't have to be soft, or even pretty.
not a bad film (though not an extraordinary film) 'elephant' is a vivid and fictional depiction of a typical American high school shooting; one that nearly mimicks to the 'T' the events of April 20, **** simply, the Columbine Massacre. Whether it mimicks it or not, it follows in a series of many shootings that has kept the nation in proverbial stalemate, often times being the catalyst to current gun laws and the feasability of an archaic second amendment to the American constitution. No matter what side of the fence you reside on, the connotations of lax gun laws in this film are not only prevalent, but glaring. Take for instance a scene depicting an 18 year old kid purchasing a high powered assault rifle over the internet. Is that troubling enough for you?
This isn't exactly a far fetched Suspense/Horror film shot with an art-house aesthetic.......these things actually happen.
Whether there is validity in the films claims, it really doesn't matter. Albeit, not entirely a moot point, the fact that the fllm was still met with a barrage of unnecessary bad reviews says a lot about our nations apathy towards gun violence, and the kids who remain victim of it today.
As for the **** is a bit trite and somewhat pretentious at times. It still manages a decent commentary on today's standards of low morals, false empowerment (by both the bullies and those who kill them) and the collective apathetic eye of the world. If you are bothered by this movie, or in any way find it to be in bad taste, try to remember what you did the day you learned about the Sandy Hook Murders. If you only read an article about it, congrats. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, absolute congrats. If you can tell me the name of the killer, some of the names of the children, the rifle that was used in the killings and some of the conspiracy theories passed around the internet........well, then you are in fact the reason major news corps love reporting on these things; 24/7 and for the world to see. *3.5 out of 5 stars"
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Bu film, ''Columbine lisesi katliamı'' hakkında detaylı bilgi öğrenmek amacıyla izlemek istediğim filmler arasındaydı. Filmi izlemeden önce izlediğim en iyi psikolojik filmler arasında yer alacağını, hatta bir baş yapıt olacağını düşünüyordum. Çünkü beklentilerime göre bu film ana karakterlerin duygularını, sorunlarını, psikoloijk yapılarını ve bilinç altı travmalarını detaylı bir şekilde işleyecek, dratik sahneler barındarıcaktı. Lakin izledikten sonra filmin içerisinde beklentilerimin hiçbirini bulamadığımı fark ettim. Film ana karakteri derin işlenmek söyle dursun ekseriyetle onları bana göstermedi bile. Bunun yerine filmin asıl odak noktası olmaması gereken diğer karakterlerin sıkıcı mı sıkıcı hayatlarını gösterdi. Kısa olması sebebiyle de şıp diye bitti. Ne konu hakkında bir bilgi öğrenebildim ne de sinematik bir haz alabildim. Aslında iyi bir şekilde sinemaya uyarlansaydı emin ellerde tam bir baş yapıt olabilirdi, konu bakımından buna oldukça uygun olduğunu düşünüyorum. Filmin başında sonuna kadar iki depresif gencin hayatını biyografik bir şekilde izleyebilirdik ama maalesef bu olmadı. Bu olayı hiç bilmeyen ve daha önceden araştırmayan birisi, bu filmi pür dikkat izlese dahi hiçbir şey anlayamaz. Çünkü kendini açıklama konusunda rezalet derece kötü bir film. Zira bu film duyguları bile tam anlamıyla yaşatamıyor. Tür olarak böyle bir filmin vahşet sahnelerini izlerken gerilmeniz ve heyecanlanmanız gerekir ama gel gör ki filmin sonunda sizi gerecek bir kaos bile yok. insanlar bağırmıyorlar kaçmıyorlar, panik bile olmuyorlar. Şaka gibi resmen. Her neyse İyi noktalarına gelirsek filmin çekim teknikleri ve oyunculukları bana oldukça doğal geldi. Bunun dışında söylenebilecek olumlu hiçbir şey yok, varsa da ben bilmiyorum. adamlar uğraşmamak için müzikleri bile kopyala yapıştır yapmışlar. Bunlar da bilinen birtakım klasik müziklerin aynısı. Rezalet, çöp, hayal kırıklığı. Kim bu filme bu kadar fazla puan vermiş anlayamadım, kesinlikle puanını hak etmiyor. Teşekkürler.
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Awards
Cannes Film Festival
• 3 Wins & 3 Nominations
Village Voice Film Poll
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
International Cinephile Society Awards
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
