Elephant / Last Days (Box Set)

Advantages: Stark Realism of a True Event
Disadvantages: Slow Build and Violent Images

...and at any time. Elephant (2003) 18 Cert 121 Minutes Cast : Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Alex Frost. Available on imminent UK Video/DVD release. To highlight the everyday nature of this movie 'Van Sant' decided to cast real students in the lead roles and even allow them to retain their real names throughout the production. This provides the movie with an erie and unsettling reality and must have been similarly unusual for the ...
...instance the sick pleasure of seeing them die, in a similar way that beasts are murdered for their Ivory or skin. Secondly, we need to be like the elephant that never forgets and remember the pain that is caused by these events and never let this happen again. ... Read review

Advantages: cold, shocking but a very educational experiance.
Disadvantages: very slow paced and distances the audience from the texts.

...was much more tedious than Elephant as it took ages to get into the story which followed character Blake, (A representation of Kurt Cobain) and his drug addicted life style. As an audience member i failed to emotionally connect with this character and felt the film took ages to finish. This simply undermined the texts main topic of issue as i became distracted and not involved with the events on screen. Overall, i would suggest that the box set is ...
...texts, i would have bought Elephant for a brilliant £7, by itself and not purchased Last Days. The special features on both disks are adequate allowing the director to justify clearly his main intentions. The sound track to Elephant is Fur Elise by Beethoven and proves to be a memorable success in my opinion. The casting for Elephant took place at an American high school in which the actors cast had little acting experience and their roles within ... Read review

Advantages: A look at a modern day problem from the perspective of those experiencing it
Disadvantages: At some times slow, with long periods of focus on kids walking through halls with no action which leaves you wondering why you're watching at all. You know what is going to end up happening...

...often in schools these days. Elephant makes an attempt at an eerie and haunting opposing perspective story of one such school shooting. It shows the perpetrators, in a bit of a negative perspective, as loners, sad children who were born to be "uncool." and their plans to take revenge on their schoolmates for this congenital tragedy. You follow a typical student. You see the same scene 3 different ways, 3 different times. It jumps a tiny bit in time ...
...There are, unfortunately, long eriods of filming that are simply blank, and allow you a trip to the bathroom without missing any dialogue or plot. The soundtrack is lacking, often nonexistant. A true independent film. It leaves you of course sad, pitying the poor souls, all of them involved and wishing you could do something to help out, but it leaves you also able to shrug your shoulders and walk away as the tape rewinds, forgetting already what ... Read review