Review of Elephant

This is a film of deep insight into the life experience of American boys. It should be an item in the curriculum of all teacher education programs, along with films such as TO BE AND TO HAVE. It should be viewed by parents when they have just had a baby boy. Gus van Sant understands boys better than anyone making films today. Behind the utterly impassive faces of two boys who feel deeply but have not way of living in the world of the adolescent daycare centers we call American public schools is what has been called (lamely) alexithymia--the inability to find words for feelings--and passions that have been funneled into one expressive outlet-- white-hot rage. They are past anger, like the isolated girl who is about to shelve non-fiction books, the three anorectic girls, the courageous Black boy who is also alone, the boy who takes pictures, the boy who has had to begin to father his own dad. They don't know what to say. Every sentence is virtual, including the word "like." Nothing is for them. That sexuality fails to contain desperate hate that the central figure bears is perhaps the most telling comment the director makes. The climax of the film is not anywhere in the gunfire but in the brief scene where one boy, who made it out of the building where so many beautiful kids were killed because he never made it "in" is when his father finally realizes that it is all right to touch his own son. This is a great piece of work. In the end, the boys' sadness trumps the sadness of the place where the action unfolds. We have to pay attention to this film.