elephant
visceral loathing hard to formulate
not sure i agree with everything in this but, eerily, some things mirror my thoughts. my reaction.
``There's a big difference between a filmmaker who sets out to resist easy judgments and one who simply reproduces events without putting any thought into them'' (Salon)
but juxtaposed:
`` Van Sant wonders, and if you watch Elephant with the attention it deserves, so will you. This isn't a film about what turns kids into killing machines. It is a film that gets at the small things that can drain a heart of feeling.'' (Rolling Stone)
3 comments:
I totally agree with you. And more. Here's my own little rant from a sexual/gender-bias perspective (yes, the film is all about sex, or a putrified version of it). Gus Van Sant is a homophobe.
What?!?! Surely NOT!!! He himself is a known queer!!!
Easy mistake to make. Behind the affected beauty of Elephant - but here it's just more evident than in other films he did - lies a poisonous and self-loathing snake. Do not be lured into believing GVS' most critically acclaimed films are anything but anti-gay propaganda. He's clever, and talented, and for this reason even more dangerous. I believe he has done more in his carreer to stereotype and demonize homosexuality than any other director. And with Elephant he was reached a sort of climax.
There is no attempt in the film to offer social or psychological introspection into these characters and the murderous actions they committ. The viewer is first stunned and then fed the line: GAY = EVIL. To the illitterate masses (those at least who went to see the hyped movie), this is the only rational explanation for what happens. For the uber-cultured intelligentia, the film oozed self-referentialism, and they loved every bit of it (an inevitable social backlash against postmodern ennui - for fuck's sake!).
Bollocks. Wake up. Smell the stench of this baroque obscenity. There is no such thing as an absence of perspective. If that's what he led us to believe, it's because the real message was just too shocking to discuss over coffee with well-meaning British journalists. I don't think I have ever hated a film more. When I walked out of the cinema, G burst into tears in the middle of the road. This is what happens when something really corrupt enters a pure mind.
End of rant/review. I am going to eat a sandwich now.
oh totty, i knew it would take you all of 2 minutes to respond to this. you do love a good rant... and moreover i love reading them.
now..i think i might post some nuns up.
omg, i just saw this. i actually thought of you if for no other reason than mutual love for teeny crud, but this isn't really teeny crud in a fun way, more like real-life anxiety.
i do think the film was somewhat unrealized. not to mention the blatant homophobia was gratuitous!
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