POST 14: Elephant, a Gus Van Sant movie (2003)

1) What struck you most in the film?
What struck me the most in the movie was that the first characters that we meet aren't the two shooters. The director decides to show us in the first place a normal day in all these teenager's lifes, one apparently normal day that will have an unexpected and tragic end for most of them.

2) What also impressed you?
After seeing the movie twice I latterly realized that the director gives us a lot of clues about what is going to happen and who are going to be the victims depending on the colors of their clothes (i.e.: the two "angels" are wearing yellow shirts / the jock's sweater is red like the color of blood and has a white cross on it, looking like a target). These little details and choices are very well thought out and I find it impressive to show the character's destiny's this way.

3) Did you find anything more particularly upsetting?
I think that the school's climate is a bit exaggerated, the hypocresy that the school's students represent is very schematical and I find it a bit upsetting that the director critisices a lot of people who actually died during this tragedy. For example the characters of the three bulimic girls Brittany, Jordan and Nicole are taken to the extreme of the group they represent, they are pictured as the "silly girls" who only think about boys and archieving the perfect body through a physical and mental disorder such as anorexia is.

4) What did you find very disturbing?
I find the scene in the shower between the two shooters very disturbing because none of them were gay taking into account that they had neonazi ideologies. I know that this is a mirrored scene that shows the truth about the own director's sexuality but I personally think that he should have stick to the truth.

5) What was most shocking?
What shocked me the most was the delivery of the guns to Alex's house, the delivery man didn't ask for any documentation and what was the most shocking about this scene for me is that the mailman was talking to Alex as if he already knew him which could mean that it wasn't the first time he ordered guns online. The lack of gun control in the United States is amazing. 

6) What does the film  suggest about the two school shooters?

7) What's more, what does the film director make clear about the two killers?

8) What kind of approach to the school shooting itself did Gus Van Sant opt for?

9) Moreover, what's the main consequence of the realistic treatment he uses? What about the 'poetic' touches he instills throughout the film?

10) As a conclusion, what must we admit about the way in which the killing and the killers are perceived by the film viewers?
To conclude we can say that