My writing chums (we call ourselves the Lyme Four although we are only three) don’t only enjoy each other’s company for coffee, for writing, for adventuring, we also enjoy watching films together, and today we settled down to watch ‘Elephant’, a film I had never heard of. It was released in 2003 and is described as a psychological drama. It’s set in a fictitious high school in Portland, Oregon, and the events within it are based to some extent or inspired by a real life event which happened four years previously in Columbine in Colorado – which no doubt gives you a big clue about the content of ‘Elephant’.
I’m not going to give much away about it, just in case you decide to catch it (and I recommend it as a fascinating film) but I’ve been thinking about it since this afternoon. What interested me (apart from the plot and characters) was its narrative – how the story was told, how it unravelled, and how it explained nothing to the viewer who only gradually properly realised what was happening. It was most unconventional – even though there have been other films about school shootings it took me a while to grasp what on earth was going on – in fact I said at one point “I have not the faintest clue about what is happening here!“
I was reminded of another film, made over thirty-five years before, which made a great impression on me, Lindsay Anderson’s extraordinary film, ‘If’ starring Malcolm McDowell as a pupil at a typical (at the time) English boarding school. ‘If’ is less subtle than ‘Elephant’ and far more brutal and bloody. It is described on Wikipedia as “A satire of English public school life, the film follows a group of pupils who stage a savage insurrection at a boys’ boarding school. The film was the subject of controversy at the time of its release, receiving an X certificate for its depictions of violence.” ”Elephant’ is described “a 2003 American psychological drama film written, directed and edited by Gus Van Sant. It takes place in Watt High School, in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, and chronicles the events surrounding a school shooting, based in part on the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.”
I wonder what the next film we watch will be? No doubt it will be something interesting and unusual!
Lois Elsden 