ELEPHANT WHITE

US, 2011, 91 minutes, Colour
Djimon Hounsou, Kevin Bacon.
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew.

Elephant White is a story set in Thailand, a focus on the white slave trade. It is a violent film, basically a short story about an assassin who is hired by a businessman upset at the abduction of his daughter. However, he himself is involved in the slave trade and uses the opportunity to rid the trade of rivals. Which means that much of the film focuses on the assassin, his obtaining of weapons, his setting up to eliminate the traders and his doing so.

The assassin is portrayed by Djimon Hounsou who also produced the film. Kevin Bacon appears as an Englishman, an arms trader – with a rather exaggerated accent. While the film has statistics at the end, indicating the extent of human trafficking in Asia and the world, the film is very much a violent action feature, a film more akin to those made for video and DVD release.

1. The impact of the film? As a thriller? Social concerns? Human trafficking? Asia?

2. The Thai settings? Location photography? The cities, the squalid areas? The world of the rich? The musical score? Action sequences? Special effects?

3. The title? The visuals of elephants? Hallucinations, dreams?

4. The character of the assassin, his origins, personality? His dealings with the arms dealer? His contact with the bosses? His commission, to avenge the daughter? His being set up for further killings? His stakeouts, his weapons, the killings? The pursuit, his being wounded? The encounter with Mae? The hallucination and dream aspects? His being healed? The interactions with Jimmy? The photo, his going after the bosses? His infiltrating? The confrontations, the discussions, arguments? Deaths? His being used to eliminate rivals? The finale, the role of the elephants? Mae and her being a spirit?

5. Jimmy, the Englishman in Thailand, his weapons, cheeky attitude towards people and life? The confrontations with the bosses, torture? His friendship with Church? Supplying the arms, driving, getaway?

6. The portrait of the Thai bosses? The brutality? The rounding up of the girls, drugging them, setting them up as prostitutes, brainwashing them? Their ruthlessness, their henchmen? Wealth? Church coming after them, deaths?

7. The girls themselves, from all walks of life, families selling them? Drugs, their control? Setting them up in the brothels? The girls in the backs of trucks? Their fears, not wanting to escape?

8. Mae as an enigmatic character, the daughter of the boss, her appearances, healing, the dream aspects? As a kind of guiding angel for Church?

9. The overall impact of the film? The violence it portrayed? The issues that it uncovered?