I saw this film not long ago and I was mesmorised! Such a beautifully shot film and had quite an impact. Has anyone else see this film, what did you think? If you haven't I recommend it
I also liked the movie. The cinematography was well done, and I really felt like I was walking the halls of that school. And since none of the actors were really professional, I think they did a good job, but some of the dialogue did feel a bit forced at times. but all in all, very interesting and not a bad movie.
its funny there was an elephant thread already on the first page, becuase i just finished the movie and just logged on to vehemently verbally rape that darn elephant. there was no character development, and not a single theme presented, all of which are very pertinent issues highschool students face, were gone into depth. what i did like about the movie was that it had good camera work and to some extent, did depict a typical highschool day, with a lot of "hey dude"s and long periods of boredom. their use of little music aided that. also, i reallyed liked the character Acadia, and that little surprise kiss out of care that she gave john. in that one little scene you got to know her more than anyone else in the film, but then that was basically the last you saw of her. i went to highschool for 4 years, i didnt need 2 more hours of it
John Robinson is lush!...can't wait to see him in Lords Of Dogtown! http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1440281/
Elephant, NO CHARICTER DEVELOPEMENT. It could have been soo much more intence and such a better movie if you felt connected with the charicters and felt like you could relate to them more. It also seemed like it was trying too hard to be an artsy independant film witch kind of got old. It just seemed to lack developement. The movie toyed with defferant motivs for the two boys, but failed to follow through with any of them. The ending left me feeling "thats it?" Didnt like it very much. Though visually i think it was beautiful. Very well filmed. I was dissapointed that the content wasn't better.
That's The way I felt when i saw it. I thought it was filmed amazingly, and every shot was so beautiful, but as for the screenplay and the character development was pretty weak. Peace and Love, Dan
I was so excited to see it since the box mentioned Good Will Hunting (I LOVE that movie!!!) but while watching Elephant I kinda just thought "this is it?". Eh, oh well.
Just watched this. Everyone's right that this film is beautifully shot, much of the cinematography reminded me of Kubrick - yes, that good and unpretentiously so. The technique of varying focal length, selectively de-focusing the background was used brilliantly to mirror the experience of the different characters. When I started to realise how structurally complex the film was with repeated scenes and alternative perspectives I really sat up and paid attention. The soundtrack is quietly and subtly haunting. There isn't really that much acting, it's more a director's film, but what there was mostly rang true. As for wanting a neatly resolved plot and character development, I think that rather misses the point of the film. Elephant just sets out to show some stuff that happened; stuff that happens in real life has no plot or character development, it just happens. If you want life to be neatly explained, watch a Hollywood film. Films like this are rare (another similar I can think of is Kieslowski's Short Film About Killing); demanding that you use your own critical faculties and presenting life in all its messy complexity. I'm not entirely sure why it is called Elephant, though.
exactly, i think the lack of character insight was intentional, I personally loved it. I thought it spoke much more loudly about the lonliness of high school than having a more traditionally structured film could. I liked the fact that we never really know the people or their lives and intentions, I thought it made it much more realistic. it is a fantastic movie.
According to Wikipedia the title is a tribute to a film made for the BBC in 1989 by Alan Clarke, also called Elephant. Alan Clarke's film shows a fictionalised series of killings in Northern Ireland with no explanation about who is committing them; it just shows them as they are devoid of any context in which their perpetrators might attempt to justify their actions.
