Allegory of destruction

Gus Van Sant is less and less treating movies as movies. In "Jerry", the camera barely occupied the position of a protagonist, but in this "Elephant", even the camera has faded. Throughout the film, you see people and people. Not a role. There is no protagonist, supporting role, all human. People are not the kind of people who conceptualize in an abstract sense. They are not human nature, personality, or human heart. They are concrete people, people on the street, people in school, young people talking or walking. Ordinary, everyday person. The word person is restored to the state of the most behavioral and apparent image. In fact, this state is the most real. It's like walking. Everyone is walking every day, mentally, visually, or physically. There is no logic, spontaneous, casual, and the sight falls on another person. You don't know why it is here and not there. You listen to them saying something without beginning and ending, and you listen to them saying something that you feel like having no beginning or ending. Then, what do you think? There may be, there may not be. Then someone came over and asked you, are you crying? You say, I don't know.
Gus Van Sant uses such a state to describe school violence. Yes, school violence is the only plot that can be extracted in this movie. However, I thought that he did not make this movie for school violence. School violence is not the focus. He is definitely not a moralist or psychologist. Rather than saying that the shooting is a plot, it is more of an accident in movie time. What Gus Van Sant wants to shoot is a real and accidental survival situation. The young people looked sad and solemnly walking in the huge campus space, constantly walking, expressionless or thoughtful. When you follow them, time is broken down unconsciously, just as you break down movies and shots randomly and rhythmically. The light is refracted, delayed, and distorted in the long aisle, just like those souls that cannot be discerned. At this time, your confidence and patience are forming a strong irony structure with those bright clothes and vigorous hair. Everyone moves unclearly. Follow your instinct and time, don't give yourself a chance to stop, don't give yourself a chance to leave blank. Do not ask questions or ask for answers. A school is a loose and accidental life vessel in which all biological entities are included, but they repel each other and they do not undergo chemical reactions. Indifference, loneliness, and isolation, this is a life model that is inherited from the adult society and is forcibly certified and customized by social consciousness. The life form of the soul was drawn out. However, all the calm and closedness, the usual psychological cues and non-refuting norms of life, are accumulating an ever-increasing energy, which is equivalent to the destructive power of a heavy machine gun.
Gus Van Sant took this shooting into a movie. Since he made it into a movie, the shooting is not a shooting. I have never regarded this director as an art worker, only as a storyteller. Tell a story in the simplest way and in the most concise language, wherever you tell it, like a walk. However, walking is often the most profound and close to the truth.
If you want to improve, I would rather say that Gus Van Sant is an allegor. If you look closely, every one of his movies is a fable. From form to content. "Mind Catcher", "My Personal Idaho", "Jerry"... are all fables, and this is also "The Elephant".

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