[psycho d]

Elephant (2003). Just another banal day at school? A bleak take on the dreary reality of the bureaucracy that molds our little children into perfect citizen adults, this dark flick serves to expose the murderous ennui that is to be our posterity. Seen from a voyeuristic camera, Elephant is a look at the seemingly mundane day and events of some high school kids. Told in an almost boring fashion, such a technique fills us with the senseless boredom and emptiness that infuses these students to seek out something more, be it good or evil. Evil seems to have won out here, and it is this sense of darkness that keeps the viewer on edge, not bored at all. As the camera follows our unsuspecting players down endless corridors, a journey to nowhere, we feel their isolation, their sense of superficial pointlessness, where anything good or bad might finally deliver them from such tedium. That's when the third act comes in, almost as the savior, in its wicked role to remove the abuse of their grim and dull existence. In the end, we are jolted out of our stupor and are faced with a violent absurdity that is the result of the closeted empathy that has permeated the schoolyard and its endless halls of inanity. Merci beaucoup.
Genruk