ELEPHANT

This film was well... interesting. I delighted in the cinematography, I found it brilliant and rather unique. I enjoyed the lack of words and the conclusions that had to be made by the viewer. I feel as if Gus Van Stan tried rather diligently to connect his audience to each and every character in the film, but oddly enough i lost that connection. He displayed their names before they were explored by the camera, trying to acquaint each character to the audience as much as he could without a true arsenal of dialogue. He strived to reveal the character by the way they were filmed, and he did, but i feel as if the emotional connections were simply not deep enough. There is no doubt that what he was attempting was rather beautiful and of course innovative, but I lost that somewhere along the way. I knew that if I felt this connection as genuinely as I was supposed to I would have cried at the sight of their death, but I did not. I merely thought that the actions were sad and horrible to the highest degree, not something that deemed tears and deep sorrow. I almost feel as if this film was better for no more than its cinematography. While I was watching it I thought I loved it for more than the filming, but for the storyline as well. But in retrospect the most valuable element of it was the filming, but sometimes a film does not need to be much more than that.