Elephant (2003)

It is really rare that a movie has the same feel of reading a poem, not any wannabe writer poem, but something like an Edgar Allen Poe poem, "2001 a space odyssey had that feeling" and "Elephant", the Palm d'Or winner in 2003 has that feeling, etheral, beautiful, and invasive.

Then again i will be the first to admit that winning the palm d'or is not synonymous of greatness, since many boring movies got that distinction, it all depends on the identity of the jury, and some juries are so elitist, and prone to heavy intellectualism.

The Movie starts with John McFarland (John Robinson) taking the control of the car from his drunk father, a heavy symbol of power handed to teenagers and which they will never get back, John enters the Fictional Watt HighSchool which could be anywhere in America, The Camera follows John in long tracking shots with minmalist music, but then departs from him to follow several of his friends and fellow stuents, doing whatever they do during a normal highschool day, including creative photography, discussing serious matters, being boulimic, speaking about boyfriends and girlfriends, having weight issues, or being bullied by their classmates.

The problem is that this is not a typical day and that the school is about to witness a terrible happening, as two students Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen) preparing a mass murder and John trying to prevent them from doing so, then the story shifts into the preparing of this murders by Alex and Eric, and how easy it was for them to get the necessary supplies, and the severe alienation they were facing, while their surrounding people were totally unaware.

This movie shows terrible things in a very quiet fashion, teenagers left to do whatever they want, or can, and to face whatever they face without an assistance, or with a totally misguided assistance which does more harm then good, it's about the total failure of all the systems which are supposed to supervise them, parents educaters or even friends, what remains is the bubble everyone creates to live in, and when this bubble explodes, it will touch everybody else, in a terrible way.

But the writer/director Gus Van Sant, is too smart to be judgemental, he doesn't blame anyone, because this movie is supposed to expose the problem from the point of view of the people living it, and because the adults, and politicians and the media tend to ignore it like "an elephant in the room" hence the title.

The Cast are amateurs and that's a brilliant decision, because what was needed were teenagers being teenagers, and who would need a Misha Barton, or a Lindsay Lohan in such a movie, they are fit for the whole "cheerleader, everything is arright, drinving a new beetle" teenage movies, Mr Van Sant going as far as casting one of his movies on Myspace.

It is easy to draw the parallel with events such as the Columbine highschool massacre, but this film is intended for a broader view, and a more general approach to the theme, but then again since i live in Algeria, it's really shocking to see these priviliged kids living in a beautiful suburb being that depressed, or suicidal, i guess that at the end, happiness is like a ball, we run after it until we reach it, and then we kick it further, the problem being, that these kids didn't have anyone to show them the right ball to kick, and that some explosives look strangely like toys.