Elephant

After a minor vacation in mainstream cinema, with adroit
efforts such as Psycho and Good Will Hunting, acclaimed director
Gus Van Sant returns to the low-key aesthetics of his
rector early work (Mala Noche, Drugstore Cowboy et al). Clearly
affected by the Columbine massacre of April 1999, Elephant
documents, in a disturbingly naturalistic fashion, how two
teenagers – Eric and Alex – in a prosperous Portland
suburb, make plans for an armed ambush of the school.

Van Sant unveils his story leisurely, unjudgmentally and
without devoting himself to moral education vis-à-vis his
audience. On the contrary, he accounts for Eric and Axel’s
planning of this veritable blood bath in great detail: drawing
up working diagrams of the school facilities, ordering rifles
over the Internet, and other such administrative measures.
It is here that one can discern Elephant’s only seed of
ideological commentary – the fact that the two boys are both
fascinated by Nazi iconography and enjoy violent video
games (as well as one or two homo-erotic experiments –
this is, after all, a Gus Van Sant movie). But the director,
luckily, never tries to explain the fundamental origins of evil.
Instead he has created a film that raises questions that are
not, for any one of us, easily retreated from.
Jan Mattsson

Medverkande
Alex Frost,Eric Duelen,Matt Malloy: Producent
Dany Wolf: Manus
Gus van Sant: Foto
Harris Savides: Talat språk
English