Elephant (2003) by Gus Van Sant – (3/10)

I suppose that both the making this movie as well as its critical acclaim (Palm d’Or winner) made sense in the political and cultural climate at the time. Any movie portraying or addressing the Columbine High School massacre would have made an impact. It never explicitly states that it is about that particular shooting but I think that it is pretty safe to assume that it was.

I personally found the whole thing to be incredibly dull, pointless and a stupid attempt at being intellectual and insightful. An interesting movie could have been made about this subject matter, to be honest it is surprising how dull this movie actually is given the subject matter. For whatever reason, Gus Van Sant ignored all the potentially interesting things about his subject matter and just decided to make shots that he thought that were artistic or clever. This is not film making, this is masturbation. From what I have been hearing this seems to be Gus Van Sant’s style, maybe I just don’t get it.