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This movie is a fictional story, but it is essentially a retelling of the Columbine High massacre. It only spans maybe an hour in time, but it coves the points of view of a lot of people, from victims to bystanders to the murderers themselves.

It's a particularly important piece because of its storytelling style. Van Sant has the camera follow one character at a time, on the day of the murders, and lets the story tell itself. It is about as neutral as one can get, really. Van Sant doesn't use foreshadowing, he doesn't frame any character up as a particular archetype, he doesn't play ominous music, and the dialogue is about as inane and high school-ish as you can get, very realistic actually. There are no jokes, and relatively few scenes designed for maximum shock effect. That's the whole point: the situation was a normal high school day, and the very events, regardless of how you paint them, should be as shocking as anything. All the while you're asking yourself, "How can this possibly lead to a massacre? These are all normal kids," which faithfully recreates the tone of morning leading up the unexpected real life events.

If you're looking for a conventional movie with a clear beginning, middle, end, good and bad guys, glorified heroism and demonized violence, you won't like this movie, it's not a made for TV special, it's closer to an art film.

Some people have expressed anger at the movie, accusing it of some sort of liberal Michael Moore anti-2nd amendment sympathies or heavy handed preaching. Having seen it I can't possibly understand what they're talking about. My suspicion is that they're seeing what they want to see. And that leads me to wonder just what a good movie about Columbine would look like, in their opinions. To me, this is it.

Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" is what critics claimed it to be - an observation. The film strains very hard from any bias and undue sentimentality. It seeks to create a distanced atmosphere of void allowing the viewer to fill it with his / her emotional or intellectual reaction.

Does it work? In maintaining his distance Van Sant succeeds admirably, faltering only once or twice, satisfying some distasteful or satirically exaggerated high-school cliche. For instance, the camera follows three clearly popular girls, all concerned with their diet, through the lunch line in the cafeteria to the table where they have an empty and inconclusive discussion about the meaning of friendship (this is not the problem) and wander into the bathroom and synchronize vomiting behind closed stalls (this is). While there are, doubtless, instances of such behavior in all high-schools, the scene seems like a forced joke, irony shoved down the throat of the audience. Still, these shortcomings are few and far between. Most of the film consists of unfinished, meandering conversations and meandering people, wandering in and out of focus of the observing camera, which traces its way through a Portland school on one fall day. It does so, portraying the school life with solid realism, focusing on a few characters who experience this life differently.

However, these variegated experiences fade into meaninglessness when Columbine-style violence breaks out and the characters, known and anonymous, are shot by two boys. Van Sant's implication, objective camera observation or not, is clear in the way he tells his story. Whatever these kids that we meet experience is rendered meaningless by the violence, equally meaningless, that comes to end them. We are left with tragedy, questions, and shock. "Elephant" achieves this emotional resonance quite well precisely through its merciless observation, its refusal to preach and to sentimentalize the events it portrays.

Nonetheless, I think that "Elephant" should not necessarily be judged by its lack of sentimentality and bias. In an somewhat exaggerated comparison, "Elephant" feels a little like Van Sant's remake of "Psycho," shot for shot. Here is a film which is an attempt at a recreation of something like that which happened at Columbine in the course of one day, without the media and social baggage that came afterward. (Michael Moore dug into that). Its goal is exacting realism, its method strict self-discipline and austere self-restraint. And Van Sant leaves us with a haunting picture of school violence. So what? Yes, he manages to shed a lot of the embellishments with which society and the media have adorned school violence, but it leaves us with very little. The meaninglessness of the violence is self-explanatory as is the ordinariness of the day on which the violence occurred, until it occurred.

Van Sant does not blame the media, videogames, or rock-music (though videogames feature in the film more prominently than media, while there is a total absence of rock-music). He just shows us what happened. I think the problem is not that people didn't know what happened, but utilized events like Columbine to attack things they hated about society, to push censorship, or to oppose gun laws, to push for education, or oppose lax security at schools. Columbine created a forum for many bubbling issues and offered a chance at scapegoating. It warned of the growing alienation of high-school kids (which the film depicts reasonably well), while signaling of a much-deeper crisis emerging within our society. While I think that Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine" is a film hardly without biases and agenda (something that is to be treasured in "Elephant), it attacks that second, more prominent problem much more successfully. Columbine exposed many contradictions within schools, homes and in the the much larger social and political arenas.

"Elephant" is a film that expertly portrays alienation of its subjects and the meaninglessness to which they are reduced by the violence that breaks out. And, while I do not oppose but praise its restraint, "Elephant" says far too little to be watched again and again, or remembered for a long time.

I just finished watching this movie and I am struck by how quickly I forgot how the world looks when you are a teenager. The movie was excruciatingly slow to start. Instead of formulaic pacing, this film forced us to move at its pace, where we were committed to each long slow camera pan or walk through with the characters. As I have grown up the scope of my life has been ever widening. It stands to reason then that during my younger years I barely conceived of life outside of what I knew, or where I was able to walk. This is what stands out to me about Elephant. When events like this take place, we immediately contextualize them and are unable to look at it from the level of those involved. What Gus VanSant does is bring us very close to the story. I don't see that he attempted to answer many questions, or to portray any specific characters in any light, but he attempts to bring the audience inside such a situation. To the villains in this film there is no deep reasoning, and no evil justification. Aside from revenge over minor school harassment they want to play a more realistic video game. They have created their own reality and carry out their deeds inside of it. This film was made without exploiting the memory of those who have actually been involved in such an event. Since it has been 5 years since these events took place, I am surprised to see a fresh look at this subject matter. What is especially heartbreaking about these tragedies is that when there is no meaning and just random violence there is nothing we can learn by investigating it. The irony of course is that I got this message from viewing a movie that explores this subject matter. I think the movie tells us we can only move on after senseless tragedy, and not solve the problems that caused them. When there is nothing behind the eyes of the people carrying this out, there is no great value in making sense of their actions. It is human nature to do so, and you would think that logically there would be theories, conclusions, etc about the causes. However we would gain much more by focusing on the people who were the victims, and learning about them. In this way they may make a positive mark on us.

Gus VanSant's ELEPHANT isn't an unquestionable masterpiece, but it's close. I found it to be hypnotic and gripping, and in spite of knowing how things would end, I still found the ending to be devastating.

The lone flaw I can identify is originality - this film owes a tremendous debt to certain international directors (Bela Tarr and an earlier Irish ELEPHANT, along with current maverick directors like Abbas Kiarostami, Hirokazu Kore'eda and Tsai Ming-liang) in both look and perspective, and it's not the only recent American film to make effective use of poetic imagery: FAR FROM HEAVEN, LOST IN TRANSLATION, CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES, RAISING VICTOR VARGAS all took a similar approach to their subject matter, and were all just as effective.

But VanSant's style has matured - the sky scenes in ELEPHANT seem to quote DRUGSTORE COWBOY, and in both films they symbolize the passage of time, the general drift of life, and in opening with such a scene, VanSant is offering a subtle warning that ELEPHANT is poetic and interpretive, not a docudrama or realistic take on high school shootings, and shouldn't be taken as such. Characters drift through the day, knowing each other at mostly superficial levels (not moving beyond the level of stereotypes), which feels like what I remember high school to often be, and VanSant has no interest or need to move beyond that - to 'read into' these characters, or have them make grand speeches and gestures would've only made this film preposterous.

ELEPHANT isn't about the media (which is ubiquitous), homosexuality (a random genetic occurrence found in any setting), bullies (which exist everywhere as well, though for psychological or sociological reasons) or any variety of high school caste system - it's about the randomness of violence, and the first two thirds of this film - in both the gliding long shots following characters (and the audio, with conversations drifting in and out), and the fragmented timeline (shifting back and forth in time as it moves from one character to another) - is a startling portrayal of the random, anonymous nature of an average day at school. It could be noted that the school is just a location of convenience in VanSant's hands; this film (or the incidents depicted in it) could be set anywhere, which is partly the point. In much of the world, random, senseless violence is always a possibility, which is really what this film observes and (in the horror of the depiction) protests, and it's just as much of a tragedy when it occurs in a generic, random, average setting (like this school and the people in it), as when it occurs in a dramatic, unusual setting that creates martyrs and heroes.

A very challenging film, in the best of ways. For quite a while, we've seen a number of films attempt to explore similar themes (most interestingly, many of Stanley Kubrick's films), often going for the opposite approach - startling an audience with intensity and violence: the heavy-handed brutality of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (the most brilliant example of shock tactics used effectively, though lacking the subtlety that makes other Kubrick films stronger), or Larry Clark's far more exploitative and dull KIDS (a genuinely sloppy and anticlimactic film which seems to exist mainly to give a sheltered audience a few 'shocking' cheap thrills to get off on, offering few insights that hadn't already been offered elsewhere). ELEPHANT stuns primarily by taking the opposite route - languid and poetic - which ultimately makes it all the more powerful.

There are very few films which manage to keep the entire audience seated through the credits, but this is one of those few, at least at the screening I attended. Ok, so the abrupt nature of the ending may also have had something to do with that, but I felt that rare feeling of total dislocation and nausea once the film was over, so realistic and horrific was the violence.

This disjointed examination of the causes of a Columbine style shooting works so much better, I think, than a 'straight' drama would have done. In destroying our expectations of a traditional narrative and avoiding what could have easily become cliched characterization, Gus Van Sant also demonstrates what the probable reality of a situation like this would have been, which is senseless, anti-heroic and totally random. A lesser version of this story would have had Michelle, the geeky outcast, or Benny, the brave and silent student who helps a distressed student out of a window become heroes. Their inherent goodness or strength would have them saved. Here, they are simply snatched away from us without glory, fanfare or mourning.

Van Sant's method of using long shots without dialogue or cuts works brilliantly, not only lending the film a doomy atmosphere, but also a highly lyrical quality that captures perfectly the isolation and loneliness of these characters, so often unable to communicate. These kids talk about nothing, and everything, their brief, clipped conversations pregnant with subtext. It is as close as a fictional film has come to creating truly believable, real people in recent memory (Harmony Korine 'Kids' also comes to mind).

Being less than two years out of school, one of the elements I appreciated most was the way in which the film captured the social structures of school, and that all enveloping feeling that everything is so important. After all this delicate build up, the shooting feels like a truly cataclysmic, apocalyptic event. That Van Sant shoots one seemingly unimportant scene from three points of view further enhances the sense of the randomness, and at the same time the inevitability of this event. The violence itself is extremely well handled, never glorifying or even being too explicit, and is yet completely devastating.

The only area of the film that I felt was unconvincing was the build up that we saw from the killers point of view. Having them watch a documentary about Hitler seems too heavy handed, and the nature of the relationship between the two is far too undersketched, and unnecessarily complicated by having then kiss in the shower.

Ultimately however, this is a powerful film, beautifully and sensitively made. It is one of those films, alongside Schindler's List that should be compulsory viewing for school children. It's shocking nature would be best utilized for people of this age, as I feel it would no doubt help kids to think more carefully about their actions to others.

'Elephant' deals with one of the elephants in America's living room (one of the obvious but not dealt with problem - the culture of vulgarized violence which, combined with the easy access to weapons lead to the violent high school incidents like the one in Columbine. Director Gus Van Sant after cashing some good money from a previous commercial success did this movie the way he wanted, so he is the only to praise or blame for the film success or failure. The treatment is really different from what you expect, much is being invested in showing the banality of the teenagers life, the next door kid profile of both vilains and victims. No obvious message, the viewer is left completely on his own to draw its own conclusions, like in real life. The method works for much of the film, you feel the tension because you know what happened, but otherwise much of the film could be a high-school documentary, sometimes amusing, sometimes boring (why these long corridor shots?). I liked this approach to a point, but then too much is left to the viewer, and the characters (acted mostly by non-professional actors) do not have enough emotional depth. A film is to be judged based on what you see on the screen. Based on this it gets only 7 out of 10 on my personal scale, although the discussions it opens on the subject, and the thoughts after the screening may grant it a higher rate.

This film probably will attract the wrong kind of viewer who is expecting to see a violent movie. Gus Van Sant has made a very strange film, in which the events of the Columbine High School massacre will be looked as a model for the movie. But is it? Under the surface Gus Van Sant has infused the film with symbolism that is too subtle for a lot of people to grasp, and who will undoubtedly look at the big picture, one in which almost shows no action, and will get the wrong message.

The film is haunting in that the camera follows the principals of the tragedy from behind. We are basically looking at how these lives crossed one another and how fate brought all these people together for the catastrophic ending. The film is brilliantly choreographed by Mr. Van Sant as we get to see how each person is affected.

Alex, the sick mind behind the killings is seen briefly in class being splashed with a substance on his jacket. He is probably bullied in school because he shows all the characteristics of being an easy mark. The most revealing aspect of Alex comes toward the end of the film in which we get to know a dark secret of his life and perhaps it could make us understand this troubled soul a bit more.

The use of the music, played by Alex, is very effective in creating the mood for what will follow. One wonders how Beethoven's Moonlight sonata and Fur Elise will have any dramatic impact in the young player, who, while executing both works seem to be preparing for the devastating and tragic ending.

The film is short, but as far as this viewer is concerned, it went by very fast. This shows a slice of life in suburbia that some of us never experienced and thanks to Mr. Van Sant we get to understand why, if everything is apparently so perfect, tragedies like this one happen again and again.

I must say that I thought the beginning of Elephant was excellent. Watching ordinary people in ordinary situations led me to believe that what would come after would be interesting. Unfortunately, the movie moves toward the "diffuse" (acting without explanation) then downright dissapoints as it ends abruptly. Some have compared Elephant to "Kids". I found the characters in Kids repulsive and unlike any "kids" I've ever known. The characters in Elephant do seem real. Yet I have to say that after watching both movies, I respect Kids more.Elephant could have been a fine movie. Unfortunately, it isn't.

"Safety is a big disguise that hides among the other lies" (Hüsker Dü, Divide and Conquer, Flip Your Wig, 1985).

Generally I don't go much into Gus Van Sant's stuff. I have only a vague recollection of "My Own Private Idaho" (1991). "Will Hunting" (1997) was highly overrated while "Psycho" (1998) was a waste of time and money. That said, "To Die For" (1994) had a staggering Nicole Kidman and some critics may have slated Van Sant's most recent effort "Last Days" (2005), it stands out as a palatable and even, valuable piece of work. "Elephant" (2003) which deservedly pocketed the Golden Palm at the Cannes festival in 2003 is perhaps the finest hour in all his career.

In 2002, Michael Moore, one of the most eloquent prototypes of the committed director had shot a documentary, "Bowling for Columbine" with a thorny and prickly topic since it dealt with the selling of guns in America and their consequences. Moore went beyond his subject to construe the problem of violence linked with guns in America. I read in a French newspaper pieces of information which sent shivers down my spine: at least 100 000 teenagers go to school with a gun and between 1997 and 1999, the USA knew a dozen of deadly slaughters in high schools. Van Sant's flick is a perfect illustration of both Moore's documentary and one of the major American plagues revolving around guns although "Columbine" is never explicitly mentioned in the film. It also offers a deeply pessimistic view of a vulnerable American youth.

Van Sant's film hits its stride from the first minutes. The introduction presents John who goes to his high school with his alcoholic father (acted by Timothy Bottoms who thirty years ago acted Johnny in Dalton Trumbo's excruciating "Johnny Got His Gun", 1971). The fact that John's father is alcoholic speaks volume about the delicate stance American youth finds herself. Then, as soon as John arrives in the high school, Van Sant's directing works wonders. The pace of the movie is haunting and hypnotic. To stay back and modesty are his formula keys. He opposes majestic travelings with static shots. The first device is favored for several functions: Van Sant's camera follows several high school students from behind them (a little like Stanley Kubrick follows his astronauts in certain sequences in "2001: a Space Odyssey", 1968 even if one can deem the comparison as far-fetched!) like a benevolent angel but also to make the audience share that impending tragedy waits around the corner. One could also argue that these travelings help to underscore how much these days are ordinary, humdrum, even empty. They also bestow a familiar place with a eerie side with these long corridors dimly lighted. As for static shots, they help to capture his young interprets' thoughts and how they feel in the high school. It's either blossoming like for Elias, keen on photography or either traumatic for Michelle: she nearly doesn't say a word but her silence speaks louder than words. Besides, dialogs don't have much importance, these high school students speak about all and nothing. Especially, senses express themselves. Then, to give more weight to the fact that each teenager has its own perception in this high school, Van Sant chose a bunch of teenagers he follows individually. It doesn't matter if we see a sequence again a couple of times, the standpoint is different according to the followed young person. Ultimately, Van Sant's directorial style has something aerial coupled with a documentary side which pervades a major part of the film.

But today, tragedy dangerously lurks. Alex and Eric go to the high school to shoot down several of their classmates. The murders are shot with a certain remoteness behind the killers' backs and in some moments, Van Sant prefers the off-camera illustrating Alfred "Hitch" Hitchcock's golden rule: "horror is more heinous when it's suggested". Facts are here, causes aren't. At this level, Van Sant only skims over them and raises the inklings about what may have urged the two boys to act. It can be social or academic problems. The first apparition of Alex places him in a chemistry lesson and he's a little apart from the other students whom some laugh at him. Alex, a scapegoat? Then, just before Eric kills one teacher, he says facts to him that give ideas about the relationship he may have with him. But also, their parents are often absent, they play violent video games, they watch a documentary about Nazism... Up to the viewer to try to decipher the slayers' motives.

Symbols are also Van Sant's forte: recurring images of a cloudy sky and when Michelle is killed, blood spreads on the books. Guns at my school, indeed.

More than acted, it's nearly lived by these non-professional actors whose roles fit them like a glove. Van Sant had fostered improvisation among them, it paid off well.

The depiction of a vulnerable American youth in prey to the major plagues of her country, especially violence linked with guns, the fearless "Elephant" is this and more. See it any costs!

It takes courage to create a film like this, and it is effective in creating its build-up by increasing the tension towards what we all fear and know will happen.

However, the way it approaches this moment is not exactly what I look for in a movie. I fully understand the idea of portraying a normal day and showing that it can happen at any moment, and there is little we can do to avoid it. However, the film relies too heavily on slow scenes with very little substance, only to make us feel uncomfortable.

I have no problem with movies that make me uncomfortable, but I have a problem with movies that do it for that sole purpose, without captivating my interest with a story or characters that engage me. It is a movie that I respect, and, simultaneously, I doubt it adds anything to the discussion other than greater fear and a sense of powerlessness, but above all, it did not interest me as a fictional narrative work. In any case, applause for the discomfort it manages to create with so little.

On April 20, 1999, two boys wearing trench coats carried a daunting arsenal of weapons harnessed with military web gear into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and systematically gunned down thirteen students. Gruesome though it was, the incident was just one of eight fatal high school shootings between 1997 and 1999. These traumatizing events began a debate about what was wrong with the nation's youth, an issue that is the subject of Gus Van Sant's Elephant.

Winner of the Golden Palm at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, Elephant is a brilliant and deeply affecting film that makes a courageous attempt to grasp the malaise of today's youth culture. Van Sant does not attempt to explain Columbine or uncover its underlying causes, and there is no revealing epiphany. His film is a highly stylized, dreamlike tone poem that defies linear conventions and is almost surreal in its approach. Using flashbacks and recurring images from different points of view, the film captures the mood and tone of its adolescent world: its perceptions, its self-absorption, and ultimately its darkest instincts.

The camera is a detached observer, and the strength of the film lies in its acute power of observation and detail. Van Sant shows us all the surface rituals: the girl cheerleaders, the boys playing football, the locker-lined hallways, the academic discussions, yet an ineffable feeling of loneliness pervades. The picture features impeccable acting by a group of non-professionals from the Portland, Oregon area. Each character is introduced separately and we see them going about their business on a seemingly ordinary school day. The steadicam-tracking camera follows them as they walk through the sterile halls that seem endless. The school appears without life -- a place where one feels a desperate sense of loss.

We see John (John Robinson), a blonde-haired surfer type, take over the driving from his father who has had too much to drink, then get called to task by an administrator for being late for school. Eli (Elias McConnell) is a photographer who asks classmates, including John, to pose for pictures. Football player Jordan (Jordan Taylor) meets his girlfriend Carrie (Carrie Finklea) for lunch. Three friends Nicole (Nicole George), Brittany (Brittany Mountain), and Acadia (Alicia Miles) gossip and argue about who is whose best friend. Michelle (Kristen Hicks) refuses to wear shorts, is admonished by her teacher, and then goes to work in the library. The paths of these students crisscross throughout the film and each has their own destiny to fulfill when the violence erupts.

The main protagonists, Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen) are modeled after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine. When we first meet Alex, he is being shunned by his fellow students, called names and pelted with spitballs in science class. Alex is more outgoing and creative, Eric more passive, but their personalities complement each other. Alex and Eric wait at home until a strange package arrives in the mail while Alex plays Beethoven's "Fur Elise" on the piano. When they return to school, they are dressed in combat gear and ready to kill.

Rather than giving us pat answers, Van Sant bases his approach on the elusiveness of truth, and our insatiable desire to know more. The imagery and camerawork are almost painfully beautiful, while the disconnected narrative deliberately withholds closure. On top of all this, the pacing is superb, slowly building up the almost unbearable tension. When it is finally released, the explosion hits you with a frightening energy that is as unforgettable as it is chilling.

This is Van Sant's second consecutive docudrama about pretty boys walking around, not doing much of anything. While some might be fooled by pretentious arty justifications, I do hope Gus returns to making narrative movies with characters and plot. His experimentations post-Good Will Hunting have all fallen flat. This movie lacks any kind of focus, avoids making any point, and generally leaves absolutely no impression of any kind. Also, Gus ought to know that any scene of boys kissing drives viewers to such extremes of distraction that they can focus on nothing else, as certain postings on the bulletin board I've seen about this film prove. While I agree with an earlier user's long assessment of this movie, a 1 out of 10 vote is a bit hyperbolic. Like this movie, my vote is neither here nor there. It aroused no grand feelings in me, positive or negative, and deserves a lackluster 5.

(Caution: this is one of those movies that its best not to read about before you see it. Not because there are major plot points to spoil or twists, but because you'll be more impressed by it if you discover it for yourself. So much as i'd love for you to read what i have to say about it, please come back afterwards!)

This film unfolds with the delicate beauty of a flower. Van Sant has made so much commercial rubbish of recent years (Finding Forrester, Psycho, Good Will Hunting), that you forget what a surprising, original artist he can be. The second most original project Van Sant has made, My Own Private Idaho, pales in comparison to the significance of Elephant. I haven't seen a movie in a long time where i've thought "this is an important film." This, at last, is an important subject for cinema.

You know you've seen an incredible film when while you're watching it you forget all the other movies you've ever seen, and say to yourself "ah, so THIS is cinema, i never knew!" And three days later you can't think about anything else.

The school in this film becomes a live universe. We follow one character around, spend some time with them, so we feel that what happens to them is happening to us, and we switch to someone else and spend some time with them. They all have names, they are all living breathing people. Through suggestion, Van Sant creates an atmosphere where we feel that this school is a living, breathing environment, a world unto itself, and we feel the separate humanity of each member of it. We feel Van Sant could just as well have chosen to follow any of the other thousand members of the school.

Twenty minutes into the film, one character heads out of the school and sees two boys with army gear on carrying big loaded bags. He asks them what they're doing, and one of them tells him: "Get the f**k out of here and don't come back. Some s**t's going down."

I've never seen such an original treatment of structure and style that serves the story. We follow each of these characters around the school in real time, so certain portions of each of their stories are given to us piece by piece. I won't say any more, and i don't want to spoil my memory of this beautiful film by putting it into any more words. Go out and see it. You'll never forget it.

I have been waiting for Elephant to hit theaters near Philadelphia and New Jersey for a good two months now. It finally arrived this past weekend in Philadelphia so I decided to make a day out of it and see Elephant along with some other Indies.

Elephant is basically a slow paced film, which follows many students in a day at their High School before a school shooting. Each character is followed in the film and is an average student you would find at a high school for example, the jock and the cheerleader girlfriend, the nerdy girl, the troublemaker, the dork who everyone picks on, etc. The movie seems extremely real as though this is your local high school and these are students that attend the school.

The director and writer of this film Gus Van Sant did a great job. The camera angles are the expertly shot. Gus Van Sant did a great job of following the characters in the film and building some characteristics of each character. The film for the most part is silent and this makes the film more effective. The movie rewinds many times to focus on its different characters.

The acting was great especially since everyone in this movie is a nobody and looks like the actors and actresses all just came out of high school. It made the film even more powerful that we did not see big teen cast in this film but just a bunch of nobodies.

The movie's ending is not a pleasant one and ends abruptly. The film has a very powerful ending and is very creepy. It makes you really think. I really liked it.

The film is marketed as a movie about a school shooting but I think it's more than just that. Its a very true life film that makes you question the people you attend school with. It is a film that very few will see but is one powerful film. Its ending alone being not a happy one is worth the price of admission alone. If you get a chance to see Elephant, I highly recommended it. My final rating is for Elephant is an 8/10

Many people hated it, now I know why. This is not for everyone. Strangely shot and strangely structured, it's a novelty item all the way. Gus Van Sant has freed himself from every bit of possible mainstream blood that he still carried inside him, and made this slap in the cheek to everybody who thought they could preview what kind of movie this would be. Not a morality tale, not an easy readable message, not at all. This movie is as curious and strange a movie can be. And it's one of the most original and exquisite pieces of movie language I have seen this year. Many will hate it, I just gaped in awe to the burst of such silence.

Writer-director Gus Van Sant returns to his early promise with this insidiously-mounted and gut-wrenching tale of violence. Putting a recognizable face on tragedy, Van Sant casually introduces us to students at a Midwestern school who go about their day, their lives intertwining and connecting even beyond their own comprehension (they have no idea how much they matter in each other's lives). Of course, the day ends in tragedy à la Columbine, but the filmmaker isn't exploiting real-life headlines: he shows artfulness in spreading this story out and then twisting it around, encircling both his cast of players and us. We learn bits and pieces, and then it's all over. Depressing, certainly, but quite real, scarily concrete and final. I didn't care for the abrupt ending (it's as if they decided upon it in the editing stages) and some of the inexperienced actors are a bit self-conscious, but we finally have the real Gus Van Sant back and that's a gift. **1/2 from ****