our time

Rozella 2022-12-10 21:53:33

I watched The Elephant this morning.

The beginning is a flowing, fragile sky, with white clouds entwining the blue sky. The camera is so close that it points directly at the green of the heart, the verdant campus, the playground, the young and beautiful faces, playing football, falling in love, taking pictures, doing exercises, and running. But I feel cold, I don't know what method Garth van Sant used to make his shots make these lively shots so gloomy, obscure and ambiguous.

I suddenly trembled violently. Then goosebumps ran all over his body.
He and he have two calm faces, serene and smiling, killing the running and screaming people around them one by one.
The blood of so many teenagers flooded the screen, the sky was roaring, and the dark clouds before the storm were hysterical.
In the end, he killed his companion with a dignified expression, sitting alone in the dark dining room, quietly drinking a glass of orange juice, with some corpses lying across his feet.
Beethoven's "To Alice" suddenly sounded, and the flowing clouds in the sky were still so charming, green, and entwined with the blue sky, as if nothing had happened...

What is our time like?

Like Eric and Allen in the movie? Some Nazi documentaries, some low-level violent video games, a piano score for a middle finger, some AK rifles that you can buy anywhere on the Internet, some repressed lust in the bathroom...

After they shoot at the crowd At the time, no one can understand the real pain in their hearts, just like the cloudiness of the sky can never be fathomed, they are unfathomable.

Especially like the title of the movie, "The Elephant". I think it's a metaphor for some kind of resentment.
Anyone who tries to speculate on other people's dark psychology is in vain, because the pain is so hidden, you can only touch a small corner of it forever.

We are always so ignorant of each other's world. Like a blind man touching an elephant in the dark, so hopeless.

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Extended Reading
  • Marques 2022-04-24 07:01:15

    There are long shots but no planning and scheduling, just follow behind the scenes, so long that it only feels long~ There are multiple narrative lines but no narrative meaning, any foreshadowing of any character ends in a bullet~ Want to respond to school violence is all around us , and does not have any critical position, but it feels so simple that it looks like a student work~

  • Eloy 2022-04-24 07:01:15

    Each character is not really "cared for", but is reduced to a coherence of events that "assembles" different, discrete temporal objects. Whether it is limited to the continuous guidance of the camera’s line of sight by the coherent actions of different individuals in the same space (canteen, library, basement), or the follow-up shots that are closely attached to the same individual to complete the transition between different spaces, “real time” can be constantly emphasized. , the picture equivalent to real time allows the power of silence and death to expand. Therefore, it is a betrayal of characters and a betrayal of time, but it maximizes the fermentation and diffusion of emotions.

Elephant quotes

  • Alex: [after Eric gets into the shower with him] Well this is it. We're gonna die today. I've never even kissed anyone before, have you?

    [Alex and Eric start kissing each other]

  • John McFarland: Excuse me sir, don't go in there!