Gerry & Elephant

What the hell happened to Gus Van Sant? As far as I’m concerned he’s been caught in a creative tailspin since 95’s To Die For (itself a flawed enterprise), nevermind the hare-brained waste of celluloid that was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

Last year’s Gerry plays out as a paean to tedium virtually unmatched thus far in the cinema of the new millennium. Sure the cinematography’s gorgeous. But when the desolate sepia-tinged landscapes of the Utah desert serve as more palpable characters than the two twenty-something cardboard cut-outs played by Matt Damon and Casey Affleck the red flag necessarily gets raised (taking into account that such banality is Van Sant’s intention). With a script that probably filled no more than two college-ruled pages the film goes down like one of those Canadian Aero™ chocolate bars- a vaguely tantalizing taste shot through with lots of vacant air.

This year’s Elephant is an even more egregious exercise in self-indulgent sophistry. ‘Experimental’ in its use of improvised dialogue and a cast comprised largely of the teenaged population it seeks to portray; the damn thing comes off as alternately overwrought and undercooked. Painfully protracted long shots combine with nebulous & stilted dialogue. A ham-fisted gay subtext vies with caricatured species of students including a trio of bulimic fashion-obsessed girls straight out of Fox’s OC. One of the few engaging aspects arises through a tweaking of time and perspective. Scenes are repeated from various characters’ vantages. But even this stratagem is squandered on a ‘plot’ that’s as pointless as it is plodding.

Van Sant’s earlier work- Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho (in spite of Keanu Reeves bumbling performance) especially- stands as some of my favorite cinema of the 90s. So my indignation seems justified. I want to know where his head is at & if there’s a cure in sight. Did the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho permanently shunt the flow of his creative juices?