The film, which contains very little dialogue, depicts eighteen murders and is partly based on actual events drawn from police reports at the time. It is shot with 16mm film with much of it filmed using a steadicam and features a series of tracking shots, a technique the director used regularly. The grainy 16mm film, together with the lack of dialogue, plot, narrative and music, give the film a cold, observational documentary feel. Nothing is learnt about any of the gunmen or victims. Each of the murders is carried out calmly and casually; in one scene the gunman is seen to drive away slowly, even stopping to give way for traffic. Most of the vignettes end with the camera lingering on the motionless body of the victim.
As with several of Clarke's films, Elephant received high praise and attracted controversy. After watching the film, Clarke's contemporary David Leland wrote: "I remember lying in bed, watching it, thinking, 'Stop, Alan, you can't keep doing this.' And the cumulative effect is that you say, 'It's got to stop. The killing has got to stop.' Instinctively, without an intellectual process, it becomes a gut reaction."[2]