Elephant
d. Gus Van Sant, 2003
Through a series of long and intricate tracking shots, Gus Van Sant crafts a masterful film and a nearly unparalleled visceral experience. Elephant borrows from directors like Bela Tarr (the long takes and overlapping time-frames), Chantal Akerman (the rigorous, modular framing), and even Stanley Kubrick (the hallways from The Shining); Van Sant takes these lessons and makes a film that is undeniably his.
Within the context of the film, the visual style fits perfectly. Elephant is about a high school shooting much like one that happened in Columbine; and possibly the best thing about the film is that it doesn't try to explain the shootings, as any other mindless media outlet did at the time. Instead, Van Sant tells us, through the use of timelines where we can't see everything at once, that events like this are actually unexplainable, or so obscure that not one single person could understand it from his own subjective perspective. Throughout the film, the audience receives more information when the camera comes back and revisits certain scenes.
Harris Savides' photography and Van Sant's direction are reasons alone to watch this dense, 80 minute masterpiece.
