Steve, whilst very funny, i disagree with you on almost every level. Elephant was one of the best flicks of last year. Give it another thought or two, man. Seriously. It's a motherfuckin masterpiece is what.

If I give it another thought or two, I'll reduce that "3 out of 10" rating to a 1. Seriously, I did think about it, I hated it. It was boring, and while van Sant had pretensions towards "there is no explanation," that scene of the two boys in the room, playing video games and watching Hitler on teevee, gave the lie to his scam.

true, it's hard to buy the "no explanation" stuff when he not only makes explicit reference to the games and the hitler's, but also shotos part of his movie like a game (no pun intended). Maybe the thing is that whilst there may be a whole load of contributing factors, there is no ONE ISSUE that sends kids of the edge. Just a whole bunch of things that affect folks different ways. After all, as some folks have noted, the blonde haired kid has an alcoholic dad and all sorts to put up with, but he doesn't go apeshit with an AK.
If you like, you can find my review of Elephant at http://www.mondoirlando.com/review_archive

Aaron, I'm with Steven on this. It's not the movie folks want to think it is. It's not that GVS presents a flat landscape for us to peruse for answers, but GVS flattens the landscape for us and leave his own clues of meaning. It's not a documentary "style" nor is it cinema verite, but a standard fictional Hollywood movie that borrows a lot of the stylings of docs and CV to make its point. I posted my review of the film (and it's a long review) here:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/09/022245.php