Everything was normal.
In everyday life, people like to see scenes like this—"normal"—because it means no troubles, no surprises. That's what life generally looks like, not like movies or novels where dramatic conflicts keep coming one after another, where one wave hasn't settled before the next one crashes.
This has been in line with the consistent style of "The Elephant" so far.
However, the more normal it seemed, the stranger it felt. A creeping sense of unease spread like smoke and mist, but no one could confirm whether the feeling was real or not, because everything appeared so completely, utterly normal. In the midst of this unease and apprehension, anxiety started to build.
And soon, that unease continued to grow.
In the afternoon, two kids lay on the living room couch, bored, watching TV. On the screen was a documentary about the Third Reich.
Those historical images, those flags with emblematic symbols, played in a peaceful, suburban middle-class home, creating a stark sense of dissonance.
The calm was only broken when the delivery man arrived. The kids eagerly tore open the package—
A gun.
It was a gun they had bought online.
They handled it with great fascination and excitement, immediately heading to the tool shed in the backyard to test it out, aiming at the wall stacked with firewood, firing real bullets.
Bang bang bang. Bang bang bang.
The real sound crossed over from the realm of video games into reality. To the kids, it felt like just another harmless, fun game, their eyes sparkling with excitement.
—Sitting on pins and needles.
Quietly, it felt as if the seats in the Lumière Hall had grown spikes. One by one, the audience members shifted uneasily in their chairs, trying to find a comfortable position.
But no luck. They all failed.
In real life, moments like this often occur—
A gut feeling.
Everything seems normal, nothing is happening, you might even be in a good mood, but deep down you have this nagging feeling of unease. You can't shake the sense that something is about to change, some danger is lurking just around the corner.
When you tell others about it, they laugh it off, thinking you're overthinking, but the feeling won't go away. It's impossible to describe or explain, and you start to question yourself—maybe your subconscious is just imagining things?
But still, the unease lingers. Bit by bit, it ripples through your mind, until you begin to wonder if you're going crazy.
That's exactly what was happening now.
The quieter the movie, the simpler it seemed; but the more frightening it became for the audience.
The tension continued to build beneath the surface, pulling at everyone's nerves. Everything was sliding into a dark abyss, but reality itself, like the weather outside, returned to calm after a brief storm, the tension buried deep in the air, unseen and untouchable.
There was no background music to amplify the atmosphere, no plot buildup. Everything seemed like ordinary life, leaving the audience completely unable to predict what would happen next. Was there even danger? Where was the story headed?
This sense of uncertainty clutched at their throats, pressing them deeper into their seats, backs sinking further into the chair, tighter and tighter, almost suffocating. And yet, no one could move. The invisible pressure left everyone trembling in place.
They wanted to scream, to run, but then convinced themselves:
There's no need to scare yourself, no need to make a fuss, no need to be swallowed by your own imagination and fear.
Then.
The air in the Lumière Hall quietly, uncontrollably, grew tighter.
Drip, drip.
Alex entered the bathroom and stood in the stall, taking a shower. A short while later, Eric joined him.
Eric said, "I think today's the day, we're going to die today."
Alex replied, "Yeah… I haven't kissed anyone yet. Have you?"
Eric shrugged lightly and stepped forward, meeting him openly.
Drip, drip.
The sound of water from the showerhead continued.
The two boys began gearing up, putting on camouflage and boots. The screen showed Alex methodically busying himself, while Eric's voice came from the side.
"'I don't like those slogans.' The next day, he gathered his friends and put up another slogan. She didn't see it, so he posted another one, right in front of her apartment."
"The sign said, 'The henhouse of Kim Campbell is closed,' or 'The ownership has changed, no matter what her name is, he couldn't stand it anymore.'"
Alex pulled out a campus blueprint. "Let me see, we'll park here, right?"
The scene cut to Alex driving, with Eric in the passenger seat.
Alex said, "We'll enter through the south gate."
Just as they saw Anson coming out, Anson was playing with a shepherd dog and waved at them.
Alex said, "We'll go past the trophy room, enter through the language lab—they don't use that place anymore, so no one should be there."
Alex and Eric entered an empty classroom and began their preparations.
On one side, Alex's bedroom was laid out like a battle plan, as he told Eric the entire scheme; on the other, the actual events unfolded, showing their movements.
It felt like a war movie.
But no one could tell whether those "real scenes" were just Alex's imagination or what was actually happening.
The entire film blurred the line between reality and fantasy, not just within the camera but also on the screen in the Lumière Hall itself.
Because things were too normal, it felt absurd—
Perhaps, just like Wes Anderson's 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums, which was nominated for the main competition at the Berlin Film Festival, it completely ignored the boundaries between reality and fantasy, presenting the imagination in a light and quirky way, including crime and breaking moral boundaries.
Though The Royal Tenenbaums and Elephant are stylistically different, with Anderson's candy-colored visuals brimming with whimsical imagination, and Gus Van Sant's documentary-style realism creating a different texture... who knows?
After all, to this day, no one understands what Elephant is really about.
Even as Alex and Eric approached the school with their online-bought weapons, the alarm bells were ringing in the audience's minds, but still, no one could predict what would happen next—
Because there were no clues.
When Elephant debuted at Cannes, there was no information, no summary, leaving the entire audience in the dark. The film still remains mysterious even now, stirring deep anxiety and fear, yet no one can find the words to express it.
Then.
Bang.
A sudden sound erupted from the speakers in Lumière Hall, without any warning, like thunder from a clear sky. There was no trigger-pulling shot shown on screen, no blood splatter—just that sound, but it was enough to pin the entire audience to their seats, scared stiff.
Just like that, it happened.
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