tjwcreations I knew very little about this film before watching but now having seen Elephant I am extremely glad (and slightly overwhelmed). The film has a style and rhythm that flows beautifully with the long, slow moving shots with mostly improvised dialogue. The choice to use a 4:3 aspect ratio and Gus Van Sant's beloved 16mm film, is clever and is nice to do with how it looks etc. but it is also perfect for the feel of a compact school hallway and the slow pace of everyday school life.The acting is all round very convincing, pretty impressive as some times actors will be talking for a good five minutes with no cuts away and most of it improvised and this is all before you get to what is really great about Elephant. The interlocking stories are very clever and interesting, the final sequence is amazingly down beat and manages to capture the horror, but never glorify, a school shooting. But the camera is truly the master of the film.The camera lingers like a character, we follow characters in long beautiful tracking shots never missing anything, we see how everything is the same, we learn about the environment, the people, the school before having it all ripped away. I could write on and on about Elephant about balance of style and substance being perfect etc. but in the end it is a deeply sad film with very important issues that it doesn't rub in your face.One the best movies of the 2000s and if anything very important for any teenager to see.9/10

andras_sebok This is a terrible film. Unless it is meant to showcase how stupid American kids are it doesn't do anything for me. The conversations are pathetic, empty, meaningless, just as the film is...The whole build up takes up the majority of the film, the "actors" are awful. It looks like a bunch of amateurs got together, nominated another amateur as the "director" and wasted a few days trying to shoot a movie. Avoid. Now the stupid "minimum" 10 lines rule makes it really difficult to submit this because the movie is so horrible you it is very difficult to write more than what I did. and now I have 2 more lines to fill so I will also write about the lack of music it this "masterpiece". So to sum it up: this is a dreadful home movie with talentless actors, crappy camera work and shows a lack of imagination about how to tell a story.

SnoopyStyle It's a regular high school in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. Elias is an artistic photographer. John seems happy except for his drunk dad. Nathan and Carrie are the hot couple. Acadia is a gay activist. Michelle is an awkward nerd. Brittany, Jordan and Nicole are chatty girls. It's a normal day until Eric and Alex show up armed for mayhem. They're outsiders struggling with bullying. They play first person shooter games, watch Hitler on TV, buy guns off the internet and are possibly gay.Gus Van Sant has obviously taken inspiration from the Columbine massacre. He has a cast of young amateur newbies to play the kids. The only recognizable face is Matt Malloy who plays the principal Mr. Luce. I like the regular kids approach. I even like the the hypnotic minimalist style. I always love approaching the same event from different points of view. It's a bit slow but it's kind of interesting. My biggest problem is the portrait of the killers. This is fictional but the killers have to feel real. This is such an important part of the movie. I rather Eric & Alex be an enigma than ending up feeling false in any way. Gus Van Sant should have left their backstory out of the movie. The movie needs to shed an insightful light on the killers or else it should leave them as mysteries. There are some docudramas based on true events that are more compelling.

Red_Identity Seriously. I didn't read any summary at all because I like going into films blind, and so I didn't know what this would turn into. Basically, follow several characters for an hour so when they start getting killed you care for them. I've never seen another film do this sort of thing in such a sheerly infuriating way. Films like this can either work of fall flat, or can work in its aim and make you still hate them. I guess Van Sant succeeded, but that doesn't mean it's good filmmaking. It just feels like blatant exploitation, one of the biggest instances of emotional manipulation that I've ever seen. I feel like this could've been done in a way that was still impactful without going for cheap shocks, and this does go for them. If you want proof, just look at the Benny scene near the end. I'm sure many love this or admire it, but I can't. Something about it is cruel, and it extends beyond what's just on screen. I cannot dismiss it entirely though, since it succeeded in getting under my skin... but at what cost?