Elephant

A supple, almost jazzy film version of one of the most traumatic events from the recent history of America. Gus Van Sant loosely based his film on the notorious shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton. Yes, the same school and event that Michael Moore used in Bowling for Columbine as starting point for his satirical documentary about gun culture and Americans. Van Sant permitted himself the necessary liberties, because he moved the school (to Portland, Oregon, where he himself attended school) and invented a series of minor dramas experienced by various pupils on the fatal day. Yet one of the strongest points of the film is its authenticity. The film was not shot in the studio, but in a real school building and the young actors are not professionals, but ordinary school kids. Nowhere does Van Sant hide the fact that his film is pure fiction, but he creates a documentary feeling by allowing his camera to roam the corridors and to follow different protagonists, with some events recurring, but every time from a different perspective. Van Sant borrowed the title from a film by Alan Clarke he admires very much, dating from 1989, about the violence in Northern Ireland, with which he also stresses the social and political implications of his film. (GjZ)

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