Elephant

The Troubles in Northern Ireland inspired a lot films and dramas. Some more controversial than others.

Alan Clarke's Elephant was totally left field. When the BBC broadcast it, they were inundated with complaints on television programs such as 'Points of View.'

Never before we had a television drama, almost wordless where one person shoots another person, a few minutes later someone else shoots another and so on and so on.

Be they working in a petrol station, in a swimming pool, playing football, eating in a restaurant, at home or walking in the park, someone blasts them.

These horrific random acts of violence in due course desensitizes us to the violence. Maybe even render us bored and confused.

Without dialogue we are unsure as to what is happening and just seeing people walking about until they take a gun out and shoot somebody.

Alan Clarke was an early adopter of the Steadicam for television work which means we follow the various people out and about as the camera operator is alongside them.

This was one of Clarke's last works. He died a year later. Seeing Elephant again when the film is almost 25 years old, I was struck that this is now a period piece.

Northern Ireland has moved on since the peace process of the 1990s.

In this picture not a word is spoken. Probably set in Northern-Ireland it consists of several unrelated scenes in which we follow, with the familiar 'HandyCam' shots of Alan Clarke one or two characters for several minutes until they approach a person ... and shoot him. I think it's the atmosphere, the long buildup before the actual kill, the complete lack of both emotion and conversation that made this movie work for me. Ten years after seeing this film I still remember several scenes. It gave me the feeling that I was watching the way the killings really happen(ed) in Ireland. I wish they would repeat it someday on television.

This film was made for British television in 1988, the last film by it's controversial creator Alan Clarke. There's no story here at all. Set in Northern Ireland, the film depicts a series of seemingly random killings.

It is shot entirely on location with completely unknown actors. The film is quite disturbingly realistic. There is almost no dialogue in the film and absolutely no attempt to give the film any kind of context.

The film is certainly well-made and impressive but the initial sense of shock fades before the film is over and the repeated images soon become dull, which might be the film's most disturbing aspect. In a way the use of gliding camera movements following characters either to their own deaths or to kill someone else, as well as the film's frequent use of holding on the image of the victims for some time after the killings take place can work against the involvement you might feel for this film.

It is certainly worth watching, however. The casualness of the brutality and the haunting images linger for a long time after the end credits roll

Sort of like watching a crime movie with everything but the shooting scenes edited out, or a bit like watching the world's most depressing, low key action movie.

You get an opening title that references The Troubles, and that's about it for context. Means that the violent acts - which is all there is, really - are oddly shocking at first and then maybe even tedious. It's depressing to see so much of it play out and just keep going until the movie at one point decides to end.

By being so stripped down and short, it leaves you with a lot to think about. It definitely had more of an impact on me than Clarke's similarly repetitive and low-key film Christine, too.

No context given. No story to narrate. No elaborate set pieces or character actors. Maybe about 2 lines of dialogue. What else is there? Only the brutal reality of a country's dirty little secret. Many films about touchy political issues are analysed through a character's interpretation of how they think or how a particular story plays out but Clarke plays it out simply: people are dying... never mind the other stuff, death is caused through our own inability to absorb other people's views. The end factor being death is all that really needs to be shown to get the point across. Clarke makes fantastic use of tracking shots, slipping left and right and around to follow a person into their death.

It's provocative and probably the best TV movie ever made. I can't imagine people sitting down at night, tuning into the BBC and wondering what they should think about this mini masterpiece.