Elephant is a British short film directed by Alan Clarke and produced by Danny Boyle and BBC TV Northern Ireland. The film is set in Ireland in 1989 at the end of ‘The Troubles’. Because of the films time and place of release, audiences resonated with the film and its subject matter as it was relevant at the time. Elephant also had a documentary style which reflected the events of the era and made the films tone rather dark and cold.
The films budget is reflected in the film by the cheap 16mm film which was used to capture the film and the Steadicam tracking shots used throughout most of the film give the picture an amateurish but uncomfortably real aesthetic. Alan Clarke is considered to be a pioneer of the Steadicam. The film has been the inspiration to many other films who payed homage by using the Steadicam tracking shot. Unusually, the film has no narrative, dialogue or characterisation of any sort. The film is very implicit and requires extra knowledge of world events and history to give the film meaning and therefore requires and active viewing.
The motivation for the 18 murders throughout the film is never given to the audience and therefore the enigma is never answered, and conflict is never resolved, referring to the denial of the issues going on in Northern Ireland at that time. The film is a social commentary for this reason.
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