Probably the most exciting addition to Madstone's opening slate is Gus Van Sant's Elephant, a brilliant film that will also surely divide audiences down the middle. Like Steven Soderbergh, Van Sant is a filmmaker currently experiencing something of a creative rebirth, and one who has proven himself adept at working both sides of the cinematic fence. He's certainly comfortable enough grazing on the mainstream side (Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester), although his heart really seems to reside on the side without a name (My Own Private Idaho, the improvisational, nearly abstract Gerry, and now Elephant). That makes Van Sant a natural for Madstone.
Elephant is Van Sant's very personal reaction to Columbine and the rash of high school shooting sprees that devastated America in the late '90s. The film was shot in a real high school (a recently decommissioned school in Portland), and features an ensemble of ordinary teenagers with no previous acting experience, almost all of whom seem more or less to be playing versions of their real-life selves. Elephant was shot in 20 days, with Van Sant collaborating closely with his nonprofessional cast, and making use of documentary and improvisational techniques rather than an actual script. The results are remarkable.
The bulk of the film unfolds as a series of seemingly inconsequential and random moments, as the camera follows various high school students through the events (mostly nonevents, really) of their day. A bunch of kids throw footballs and run laps, a boy snaps photos of a couple holding hands, a geeky girl is embarrassed to wear shorts in gym class, a group of friends tease each other in the cafeteria. The camera executes a series of long, ingeniously choreographed (and therefore invisible) tracking shots, elegantly gliding through the halls and grounds of the school, eavesdropping on conversations, observing as a willowy girl plants a discrete kiss on the cheek of a boy standing by himself and crying.
The lush strains of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata play over most of this, emphasizing the eloquence and poignancy of even the most banal and awkward of these events. It becomes clear that what we're watching are moments inexplicably frozen in time, and that the film itself is nothing less than an elegy for lives lived in ways large and (mostly) small, and about to be lost.
The elephant of the title refers to the looming shape of violence, of course, the 500-ton presence in the room that just can't be ignored, though we all do our best to do just that. The storm clouds in Elephant figuratively and literally begin rolling in at about the midpoint, as the movie shows us the kids who are also the killers, and begins doubling-back on itself, replaying certain moments from alternate angles, offering different perspectives. The bloody apocalypse we're expecting does finally materialize, in spades, and our accumulated intimacy with the victims and victimizers alike makes it all the more horrifying.
Preaching is the last thing on Van Sant's mind, but Elephant does provide a few clues as far as connecting the dots here. At one point, we see the young killers glued to a documentary on Nazi propaganda, while another sequence shows one of the kids cutting short a stint at the piano (he's playing Beethoven, naturally) in order to focus on a video game with a particularly bloody body count. Scariest of all, though, is the ease and banality of the transaction as the doorbell rings and the boys sign off for their newly arrived UPS parcel containing a shiny, brand new rifle. The camera simply stands to the side and observes as the happy youngsters take their new toys out to the garage for a little target practice/playtime, and the moment says more than all the movies Michael Moore will ever make in his life.
Some, like myself, will see Van Sant's film as a thought-provoking and almost unbearably lyrical meditation on violence in general, and the young eating the young in specific. Others will undoubtedly be bored to tears by the movie's untraditional and rigorously understated approach to such monumental events ("Nothing happened until the last 20 minutes," I can already hear the crybabies whining).
In any event, it's a film that demands to be seen and demands to be talked about. And maybe we should all offer a little silent prayer this week to the gods of cinema, that there's now a place like Madstone that allows us to do just that.
Contact Film Critic Lance Goldenberg at 813-248-8888, ext. 157, or [email protected].
