Has anyone seen 'Elephant'?

[Fixated]

This movie looks amazing, but I can't find it at any theaters around here. Has anyone seen it? Thoughts?

Here's the trailer for the unknowing: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object.cgi?object=/av/trailers/2003/11/01/elephant.mov&paper=gate&file=TRAILERelephant.DTL&directory=/gate/archive/2003/11/07&type=movies

[TrogL]

1. Review on gay today

http://www.gaytoday.com/entertain/110303en.asp

[regnaD kciN]

3. That review really nailed it...

...unlike some of the bromides from a lot of "mainstream" reviewers, who seem to think that, if they didn't like the film, they were somehow disrespecting the Columbine victims. But this film, in my opinion, cynically appropriates that tragedy every bit as much as James Cameron's teen romance (you know which one I'm talking about!) did the 1912 ocean-liner disaster.

[regnaD kciN]

2. Saw it yesterday...

My capsule review: Pretentious. Self-indulgent. Manipulative. Empty.

Basically, it's just a "bomb in a bag" movie -- referring to the old example that, if you see someone plant a time-bomb in a bag at a certain location, you will be willing to sit through all sorts of inane behavior among uninteresting characters at that location, because you'll be wondering which ones of them will be killed when the bomb goes off. But the fact remains that it is still inane behavior among uninteresting characters. (An analogy would be a boring "cinema verite" film about office workers in a standard high-rise cubicle-land. Now provide the information that this office is on the 94th floor of WTC 1 at 7:30 A.M. on 9/11/01. Suddenly, it becomes "significant," and the characters acquire an artificial "importance.")

So with Elephant -- basically, it's just an hour's worth of tracking shots of vague and mostly-undefined characters, followed by twenty minutes of (most of) them getting blown away by the Harris/Klebold surrogates. The film is so shallow that it actually ends in mid-massacre, rather than following the story to its end...just another time-lapse shot of clouds, accompanied by more of the "Moonlight" Sonata, and roll credits!

Van Sant strikes me as so concerned about avoiding simple answers that he doesn't bother giving any at all, or even raising any questions. (Although it's my theory that what really drove the two students to kill was Beethoven's music -- after all, remember A Clockwork Orange? ;-) ) But, if you have nothing to say, why bother saying it?

CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST DISCLOSURE INFO: One of the actors (the guy in the Gay-Straight Alliance meeting who becomes one of the first victims) appears in an as-yet-unfinished indie comedy that I'm executive-producing. It didn't make me appreciate Elephant any more, though.