The story of Elephant is one that could be best told in movie format. And Gus Van Sant told it so well with his camera(s).

It is a necessarily dragging tale of everyday highschool life until it becomes, as the movie promises, a hopefully not-so-ordinary scenario.

Whether one who is to see this movie aware of what’s to happen or not, the ascending pacing is surely noticeable and very effective. The movie starts with John, and for a while it would seem like it’s a movie entirely about him and the others are only supporting casts. But then Eli comes taking pictures of punks. By the time the third person is introduced, it becomes evident that this isn’t a story according to one character.

It would seem like character introduction could go on forever like the lengthy walks of characters in the desolate hallways of a highschool building. Things would start to make sense when the relationship between the introduced characters became known and the tempo would increase as one sees a familiar scene on a different perspective.

The characters were well illustrated especially those that were exposed longer like John, Eli and Michelle. The hallway scenes where the three are all present as the bell rings is beautiful and quite compelling. Even briefly introduced ones like the bulimic ladies and Benny are excellently created, portrayed and are very important.

Characters are also the weak points in the movie. And since it’s a movie about characters, it did affect the overall impact of the movie. Firstly, Alex and Eric are very important characters and both have enjoyed long onscreen presence. In fact, a good number of remarkable scenes were about them like the piano and computer scene. But they remained flat.

Sure there were hints on Alex and Eric as early as the first time we see John playing with the dog but then it wasn’t enough to justify their motives. Not that there there is a need to justify them, it’s just that things came suddenly out of the blue. The classroom scene wasn’t enough and it’s so formulaic. The canteen part when a girl asked Alex about the stuff he had been putting down on his notepad was funny and not very intriguing.

Perhaps, the story wanted to leave the completion of Alex and Eric’s character sketches to the audience. And maybe it never even wanted them to be completed because even in real life we never really get to know fully anyone including ourselves.

Second, Nathan and Carrie aren’t worth much the audience’s sympahty. They’re the sterotypical idols, envy, and cause of pain and suffering of every high school student. So, random extermination happens and they have to be eliminated too in the end. But how could everyone care? At one point all the anger and disappointment is all in the murderer but after a little while, one could just care less about the lovers. To see the other’s deaths were worth the lament. But with these two, one could feel more curious whether they survive or not, or who was killed first or something else but insensitive to the actual fact that these people could just be erased.

Eney meney miney mo…were the two worth the final bloodshed? Not really I guess. It is interesting that the story chose to have them as the last victim, to bring death to the lovers.

But more importantly, it’s possible that the murderer could commit suicide after the massive slaughter yet even the lovers were more deserving of concern than him. He’s that badly sketched. I for one can’t say that he’s been a victim of the system and everything.

But aside from those poor characterizations, the rest of the movie is beautiful. The conversations are good. The scenes are full of insights and most of them remarkable even if all of them are mere depictions of ordinary things that happen in everyday life.

So this movie could be banking on the infamy of the Columbine incident, the take on it is dragging and the multiple points of view in the storytelling has been utilized by some before add to that a cast of stereotypes (hero, artist, muse, jock, bitch, nerd, psycho, rebel, wannabes…). Yet even with all those flaws it successfully delivered a shock and imparted its message.

What’s its message? Simple. Anything can happen. It’s an established fact that we seem to overlook because it’s been there since time immemorial. Saying it seems like wasting time by stating the obvious. And it’s one reason we fail to mention when we try to explain incidents like the one in Elephant.

8.5/10