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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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Offlinegluke bastid
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Elephant
    #5281496 - 02/09/06 11:49 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

*SPOILERS*
Anyone see this movie?

I thought it was really something. It was so flat and slow. Van Zant takes you into this High school world were there are all these characters, and some or more popular than others, but no is really at the center and each character in his or her own way is totally typical of high school. There are all these long, lucid shots of people walking down hallways, not much is happening here and there is a sort of calm peace to the whole thing.
All of a sudden, halfway into the movie, the whole tone changes when John walks by these two kids in combat boots and Camo with all these bags, and they are like "get the fuck out of here and don't come back." There is just this sudden terrible danger lurking in the halls of this school, and all the media's debate over rap lyrics and video games is subverted by this movie. There isn't really an answer as to why these kids did what they did. Clearly they were outcasts and obsessed with violence, but I think (in the movie at least, not neccesarily in reality) it simply came down to the fact that these kids were killers. You see all these other kids in the movie just sort of doing what they do...photography, music, socializing, sports, being bulemic, etc. What the one kid was into, and what he was really good at (better than piano) was killing people, even his only friend.
I felt like the film was empty in places you didn't expect it to be, and full in places you didn't expect it to be.


--------------------
:hst:
Society in every form is a blessing,
but government at its best is but a necessary evil
 
- Thomas Paine


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InvisibleOneMoreRobot3021
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Re: Elephant [Re: gluke bastid]
    #5281502 - 02/09/06 11:52 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

It was an interesting experiment, but in the end it didn't say anything.

It was so detached that I was uninterested in really interpreting it myself once it was over.

A very, very interesting experiment with perspective though.


--------------------
Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake.

-Erik Davis


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Offlinefreddurgan
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Re: Elephant [Re: gluke bastid]
    #5281503 - 02/09/06 11:52 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Yeah it was a pretty good watch. Some parts of the movie I was just on the edge of my seat cause it was so tense to watch.


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Ishmael
http://www.ishmael.org

Ron Paul 2008!
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/


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Offlinegluke bastid
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Re: Elephant [Re: OneMoreRobot3021]
    #5281515 - 02/09/06 12:00 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OneMoreRobot3021 said:
It was an interesting experiment, but in the end it didn't say anything.

It was so detached that I was uninterested in really interpreting it myself once it was over.

A very, very interesting experiment with perspective though.




Thanks for responding.

This is going to sound film-nerdy, but I liked the way it didn't say anything. It is the only comment on Columbine that doesn't try and come up with some sort of solution, and I think at the beginning of the movie you expect that it is going to.
For example, I thought at the beginning that John was going to be one of the killers, because he seemed to be the main focus of the movie at first. His drunk Dad driving him to school sets up this sort of Freudian thing, you think "well his relationship with his father explains his homicidal tendencies" and then it gets turned on its head. Ultimately you realize a shocking tragedy like this is just that, a shocking tragedy, that can't ever be fully explained by sociological circumstance.


--------------------
:hst:
Society in every form is a blessing,
but government at its best is but a necessary evil
 
- Thomas Paine


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InvisibleOneMoreRobot3021
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Re: Elephant [Re: gluke bastid]
    #5281524 - 02/09/06 12:03 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

gluke bastid said:


Thanks for responding.

This is going to sound film-nerdy, but I liked the way it didn't say anything. It is the only comment on Columbine that doesn't try and come up with some sort of solution, and I think at the beginning of the movie you expect that it is going to.
    For example, I thought at the beginning that John was going to be one of the killers, because he seemed to be the main focus of the movie at first. His drunk Dad driving him to school sets up this sort of Freudian thing, you think "well his relationship with his father explains his homicidal tendencies" and then it gets turned on its head. Ultimately you realize a shocking tragedy like this is just that, a shocking tragedy, that can't ever be fully explained by sociological circumstance.




I agree it was probably one of the most intelligent looks at Columbine and Columbine-type tragedies that we've had.  Nothing really matches up to it as far as taking a frank look at the people involved in every aspect of the situation.

But I don't know. I kind of felt like something had to be said. Usually I'd be a film nerd and agree with you, I like abstract open-to-interpetation stuff - I want to make films, and I want to make  my share of abstract shit. :smirk:

What about the kiss?  I thought people made too much of it. I didn't think it had anything to do with homosexuality, I thought it was  merely a symbol for the fact that these kids were lost, looking for anything to grab on to, to make meaning out of.


--------------------
Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake.

-Erik Davis


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OfflinePhluck
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Re: Elephant [Re: gluke bastid]
    #5281861 - 02/09/06 01:37 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

The style of a movie seems kind of derivative of the whole Kids/Gummo/Ken Park thing... it kind of seems like Van Sant was trying to do something he's not really suited for.


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us


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Offlinegluke bastid
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Re: Elephant [Re: OneMoreRobot3021]
    #5282806 - 02/09/06 06:12 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OneMoreRobot3021 said:
I agree it was probably one of the most intelligent looks at Columbine and Columbine-type tragedies that we've had.  Nothing really matches up to it as far as taking a frank look at the people involved in every aspect of the situation.

But I don't know. I kind of felt like something had to be said. Usually I'd be a film nerd and agree with you, I like abstract open-to-interpetation stuff - I want to make films, and I want to make  my share of abstract shit. :smirk:

What about the kiss?  I thought people made too much of it. I didn't think it had anything to do with homosexuality, I thought it was  merely a symbol for the fact that these kids were lost, looking for anything to grab on to, to make meaning out of.




Well its always good when two film nerds can agree that the less preachy a film is, the better. It's why I'm such a big fan of the movie "shadows of forgotten ancestors." It's very open ended and abstract, you might really like it.

I agree about the kiss. I think the day that Eric and Alex decided to attack the school was about catharsis, expressing latent desires that they were forced to keep inside. Eric's character is completely unable to speak throughout the film, much less stand up for himself. All of a sudden he comes in with guns and he is Rambo, expressing this repressed side of himself.

When they kiss, Alex even says "I've never kissed anyone before." I think he is seizing the opportunity to try and express the side of himself that wants to love and be loved, to the only person who could possibly understand and react in a positive way. It is like a different side of the same hunger for acknowledgent and recognition that drives him to shoot up his school. Only knowing that they probably won't walk out of that school once they go in, allows them to be honest about what's really going on inside of them.

Either that or Van Zant just can't make a movie without some level of homosexuality.  :smirk:


--------------------
:hst:
Society in every form is a blessing,
but government at its best is but a necessary evil
 
- Thomas Paine


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OfflineTheCow
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Re: Elephant [Re: gluke bastid]
    #5283035 - 02/09/06 07:12 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Parajanov is extremely excellent. Van Zant has his moments, but honestly, did he really need to remake psycho. And realistically, he didnt do a very good job.


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Offlinegluke bastid
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Re: Elephant [Re: TheCow]
    #5283169 - 02/09/06 07:46 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

TheCow said:
Parajanov is extremely excellent. Van Zant has his moments, but honestly, did he really need to remake psycho. And realistically, he didnt do a very good job.




I didn't realize psycho was Van Sant. That was a crappy one. I never really like drugstore cowboy either.

Glad to meet another fan of Parajanov...although I have to be honest I've only seen "Shadows." Can you recommend some of the others?


--------------------
:hst:
Society in every form is a blessing,
but government at its best is but a necessary evil
 
- Thomas Paine


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Invisibleit stars saddam
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Re: Elephant [Re: gluke bastid]
    #5283354 - 02/09/06 08:34 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Actually, Gus Van Sant's Elephant is inspired by Alan Clarke's 1988 short film of the same title. It's 15 minutes of random, violent killings with no dialogue or apparent explanation.


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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order


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