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Columbine High School. Those three words alone still send shivers up my spine. Like many people around the nation that fateful morning on April 20th, 1999, I was stunned to hear that two teenagers from that school have perpetrated the single worst school shooting incident in U.S. history. Armed to the teeth with a large cache of semi-automatic weapons and homemade bombs, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed thirteen people at the school before turning their guns on themselves. At the same time that I was shocked at the tragedy, I was also very far away from the crime scene, insulated, if you will, from the horrors that unfolded that morning. For most of us, what we know--which ultimately forms our emotional connection to the tragic events--we obtain from television news reports and other media. As the news slowly fade away, so do most of our memory of the victims and survivors of Columbine. For many of us who are not directly connected to Columbine--being just horrified bystanders from hundreds and thousands of miles away--our lives continue on as normal in the weeks following April 20th. Some of us may even have had the morbid curiosity to imagine what it must have been like to be able to see the events unfold right before our eyes. If you do, then "Elephant" is a film tailor-made for you.
Written and directed by leading creative force and independent filmmaker Gus Van Sant ("Good Will Hunting", the remake of "Psycho"), "Elephant" fulfils that curiosity to a tee and at the same time, leaves behind a scar that is hard to ignore and harder to forget. With "Elephant", Van Sant has given us his disturbing version of school violence in America that comes chillingly close to the Columbine tragedy. So close, in fact, that it is next to impossible not to see the horrific parallels. Everything about the film´s two perpetrators´ possible influences, from violent video games to Nazism follow what most of us already know about Columbine´s Harris and Klebold. Van Sant even chose to include a lesser-known theory that both the killers might be homosexuals.
To set an ominous tone for the rest of the movie, "Elephant" opens with a speeded-up time-lapsed shot of the sky, as it turns from a beautiful clear blue to dark and cloudy while the cheery sounds of kids play in the background. It starts off innocently enough as any normal school day does. Yellowed dried leaves litter the ground, indicating a cool and crisp fall day. A car swerves erratically down a quiet neighborhood, almost causing an accident. As it stops, we see John (John Robinson) get out from the passenger side and order his drunken father, played by Timothy Bottoms, to surrender the wheel to him. He gets to school late and is reprimanded by the principal Mr. Luce (Matt Malloy). Then we meet Elias (Elias McConnell), an avid photographer, shooting pictures on his way to school. Next, the camera follows behind Nathan (Nathan Tyson), a handsome jock, as he walks from the field to the school´s office, where he meets up with his girlfriend, Nicole (Nicole George). The scene then shifts back to John, as we watch him walk out of Mr. Luce´s office and past none other than Nathan and Nicole. Déjà vu. Suddenly, it dawns on the audience that they are watching a previous scene, but from another perspective. And so it continues, with the camera moving from one character to another, showing us different perspectives and taking liberties with a slightly non-linear storyline.
Until now, everything seems like just another regular day. The turning point arrives unexpectedly when John walks out of the school building and brushes past Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen), who are clad in military fatigues and hauling big heavy bags. At this exact juncture, the entire tone of the film changes to a nefarious one. We know what is coming but Van Sant lets the audience simmer on that uncomfortable thought as he continues to explore the various perspectives of each character. In one unsettling scene at the school cafeteria, while the camera focuses on three female characters eating and chatting, we could just catch a brief glimpse of John outside through the cafeteria glass windows at the precise moment that he meets Alex and Eric. It is such a powerful scene that just shoots the suspense level through the roof, knowing what is to come next.
Like a distant observer to the proceedings, Van Sant uses the camera in a way that keeps a small distance from his on-screen subject, often following the actors from the start of their journey as they walk along the long maze-like school corridors to their destination. In this case, the camera is used as an effective tool to build up tension and anticipation, helped by a deliberate slow-down in the film´s pacing as the camera follows the characters around in real-time as they go about their usual business. Knowing what we know, for more than half the movie we are always anticipating the killers to jump out of a corner and start shooting.
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[release]12117[/release]