ELEPHANT belongs on the list of all time great films. Gus Van Sant's work continues to surprise, challenge, and even entertain us. When he flops, he does it big time and with no apology. But more often than not he gets inside his material and tells his stories from a point of view that's unexpected and disarmingly human. TO DIE FOR is one the the finest films of the 90's, and Nicole Kidman has never, in my opinion, so deeply entered the zone of a character the way she lets it fly here. I truly believe her performance has a great deal to do with the director, his approach working with actors, and the quirky, disarming way he leads us into the tale. Same thing with FINDING FORRESTER, a story riddled with clichés and over used dramatics. But Van Sant is cagey the way he plays with our expectations, and undoubtedly created an environment on his set to get performances that rise above any teacher/student cliché that would have otherwise prevailed under a less sensitive artist. Sean Connery gives one of the finest performances of his career, playing back and forth, as he does, against his rough and tumble persona. That the film stands primarily on the seamless matching of this old pro and an amateur tells me that Van Sant is a true actor's director. In FINDING FORRESTER, the clichés evaporate and are recreated, reborn as something fresh and new. In ELEPHANT, the kids are real, not actors; they take us through the story with no melodrama to cook things up; we follow the inner lives, the pains, the hopes and dreams of all those who walk the corridors of that school on that fateful day. Simple, direct film making, with nothing in our way. That we know violence is going to erupt, and we know it will be fatal for some, gives these simple life moments a terrifying edge. I found the film intensely suspenseful and unnervingly disturbing. Disturbing because of the film's point of view: since we know what's going to happen, and in some cases, even where ( the library, for instance), we spend the entire film thinking about these lives, the cause and effects of violence, and the fact that moment to moment existence, even painful existence, is precious when the possibility of irrational violence and death exists just around the corner. I don't know any other film that does what ELEPHANT does. And except for possibly Clint Eastwood, there's no other director who could bring such an incredible vision to the screen.