13.10.2006, 4:30 am
Elephant is an incredibly painful movie to watch, and yet it is worthwhile. It's the only movie I've ever seen that I would refer to as "art". The shots, or "scenes" aren't particularly engaging in general. They aren't particularly exciting, or memorable, or funny, or intellectually stimulating. That's the realism of it. If you followed around a group of high school students who were ALONE more often than not, would you be excited? Amused? Intellectually stimulated? Would it be "fun"? This absence of entertainment value, in a sense, is what makes it "art". Ultimately you realize that the drudgery serves as an eerie contrast to the incredible horror. The other students are SO unsuspecting that it's pitiful. The tragic irony is nearly insufferable.
Now that I've seen it before...the buildup is almost terrifying. It truly makes me want to scream at the screen, or say or do something to prevent the climax, but the viewer is helpless. You are helplessly watching the slow, steady buildup toward the conclusion. It feels so real that it hurts. Yet the realism is what keeps you from looking away. I could barely stand to watch it the first time because I found it so boring, but the second time around it's a totally different experience. It's very rare that you as a viewer feel more emotion for the story than the characters themselves, but their understated reactions seem to give the viewer the opportunity to freely project their own feelings. You feel like the dominant force in the film even though you are the most removed.
The scene in the cafeteria after Alex is bullied now gives me chills. He scribbles calmly in a notepad and is asked by an innocent, curious female student: "What are you writing?" He smiles and says, "My plan". Once you've seen his plan in motion, first-hand, it gives his words an incredible amount of weight.
Painful.
