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Gus Van Sant’s elegiac, strangely haunting new film will probably divide viewers as completely as his last one, “Gerry,” did. Like that picture, which simply but beautifully depicted two young pals lost in a desert and, in the process, suggested something quite profound about the most basic realities of human existence, “Elephant” is another striking minimalist exercise. This time, however, the subject is a quasi-historical one–the incident at Columbine. Although the picture was shot in Oregon rather than Colorado and makes no attempt to follow the factual record scrupulously, it draws a good deal of its detail from the actual incident. Some may object to the process, judging it a misuse of tragedy; but “Elephant” (the title refers to a major problem that’s ignored because it’s so difficult to confront honestly) is far from being the sort of cavalier exploitation represented by facile television docudramas. It doesn’t offer a crude approximation of “what happened.” Rather it transforms the bits and pieces which it extracts from the record by situating them within a larger imaginative context that’s at once matter-of-fact and poetic. By mysteriously merging the mundane and the dreamlike, the horrifying and the ordinary, Van Sant’s film becomes less a depiction of an individual event than a rumination on the prevalence of violence in the fabric of American life. And the fact that it doesn’t offer easy answers about Columbine or any other such episode, which some will probably criticize, instead seems entirely right. After all, how does one explain the inexplicable? (In fact, it’s when “Elephant” adds some notes which make things more explicit that it runs into a bit of trouble.)

Most of the film follows some fairly typical high school students as they traverse the campus over the course of a seemingly uneventful day. Played by non-professionals, they run the gamut from Nate (Nathan Tyson) and Carrie (Carrie Finklea), the beautiful jock-and-princess couple, to Michelle (Kristen Hicks), the homely girl who’s so self-conscious that she resists wearing shorts for gym class. In between the extremes are Eli (Elias McConnell), a smoothly confident photography student; Brittany, Jordan and Nicole (Brittany Mountain, Jordan Taylor and Nicole George), three binge-and-purge gossips; and John (John Robinson), a lackadaisical blonde fellow with an alcoholic father whom he has to look after; and a group of classmates discussing gay issues–among others. And outside the circle, as it were, are two bullied loners–Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen)–who are nonchalantly planning a massacre at the school. Much of the running-time is devoted to watching the youngsters going through their day, not in terms of classroom activity (which is virtually non-existent) but in terms of their circuits around the campus; languorous, hypnotic shots follow them as they lope down the building’s hallways, with odd noises punctuating their passage, with some of them repeated several times from different perspectives that toy with the day’s chronology. Time is also tweaked in the revelations concerning the relationship between Alex and Eric: we see them lolling about at home before their rampage, the one playing Beethoven none too well on the piano while the other indulges in a violent video game (they also enjoy a first-time romp in the shower prior to departing), but we’re also shown them earlier ordering one of the weapons they use over the internet and trying it out (a scene that’s especially chilling in connection with the recently-released video of the Columbine killers testing their guns) and watching a TV documentary about Adolf Hitler. As for the adults, they’re almost non-existent, just as they often are in the real adolescent world: John’s father is more childish than his son, the cafeteria workers spend more time on break than at their jobs, and the principal takes a condescending attitude that evidences no real concern for his charges. The last portion of the film, of course, is devoted to Alex and Eric’s assault on the campus, portrayed with a simple matter-of-factness that avoids sensationalism but nonetheless carries real power (and thension) because for an hour we’ve watched the prospective victims heedlessly walking their way to an unimaginable fate.

As was the case with “Gerry,” the mixture of the mundane and the poetic in “Elephant” creates a mesmerizing mood, a seemingly ordinary surface rippling with barely felt tension–like the ground shuddering with the foreshadowing of an imminent earthquake. Exquisitely shot and crafted with unforced elegance, the film reinforces Van Sant’s position as one of the minimalist magicians of contemporary cinema. It isn’t quite as successful as its predecessor: the specific material offered about Alex and Eric–their interest in Naziism, for instance, or the indication of their homoerotic impulse–moves things toward a reductionism that reduces the sense of mystery; and the abrupt introduction of a single black student toward the close, who plays a function not far removed from the one Scatman Crothers had in Kubrick’s “The Shining,” seems a rather heavy-handed effort to introduce a racial statement that’s otherwise completely absent. But the missteps are minor in a journey that builds amazing affect from the simplest of materials. “Elephant” should definitely not be forgotten when awards roll around come the year’s end.