Sometimes graphic violence works. Here it doesn't

After seeing the end of Elephant I take back everything I said in my previous post. Well, not everything, only the stuff about the funny parts of this film. Once one sees the final scenes of this film, nothing could possibly be funny ever again. Gus Van Sant really ripped a couple of pages out of the Quentin Tarantino film bible. Those last few scenes are a mix of Pulp Fiction and any movie about high school. I don’t see how it could be possible for a bunch of teenaged non actors to be able to pull off such devastating roles as well as they did. I guess they just assumed it was another game. One thing that really shocked me was the extra footage. All of the kids are laughing and having fun with each other on and around the set. It seems to me that they don’t even realize what they’re filming. Also, while I usually like Tarantino-esque violence, it doesn’t do anything but make me feel disgusted by this film. I understand that this is a film that tried to show the awful things that can happen if we aren’t aware of problems, but Van Sant could have gotten his point across ion a much less graphic way. I felt what he was trying to get across before those two kids shot all of those people. He didn’t need to show the blood rushing down the floor and the bodies flying around like piñatas to make it clear the awful nature of violence. We get it Gus.