Last Days

Director: Gus Van Sant

Year: 2005

It's about Kurt Cobain, except it's not. It's inspired by the events surrounding Kurt Cobain's last days, but Cobain's former Nirvana bandmates and outspoken widow, Courtney Love say it's not even close.

I picked this DVD up because the cover had an image that looked strikingly like Cobain. I loved Nirvana when they came out. I've listened to them over the years many times and they've absolutely thrilled me in many ways. I saw the film was Directed by Gus Van Sant and become doubly intrigued. His film, Elephant, while one of the more disturbing films I've seen, is also one of the more hypnotic - just for the simplicity of the camera movements and the impending doom in real time.

Though this film had tragedy written into it's ending, it lacked the drive that made Elephant so exciting to watch. That doesn't mean I thought this was a bad film, but viewers should know that what they're getting is a lot more slow and methodical. I'm not sure what to takeaway from that as it plays suicide in such a strange way. Maybe that's good. Maybe seeing suicide as something that just sort of happens, yes there are warning signs, but still, it isn't the classic over-the-top in your face "somebody save me" melodrama that comes along with many suicides (or their failed attempts). This is pathetic. This is self-absorption. This is turning one's back on what one worked for (and perhaps morphed into something out of control), love (which also had to have changed) and all the things that add up to make life - and that is change. In rock and roll terms, perhaps Cobain couldn't turn and face the strange changes in his life. Maybe he never wanted to be a rock and roll star - or at least not the parts he clearly didn't like that came along with it.

And so the film follows that function - a barely alert, ghost-like Michael Pitt as Cobain, sludging through a vast, green, lush landscape that is decidedly Pacific Northwest. With all this life around him, he doesn't want to feel. He lives in a cold castle with little inside, save for other vacuous friends who are bent on their own small pleasures. The most fascinating scene to me was when Cobain began making music one instrument at a time, looping small bits one over the next. Van Sant has us watch on unflinchingly, without cut, as he slowly pulls away. The last layer to the music are Cobain's signature screams. "Yeah!" over and over again. Each one signifying something different. Some musical artists pull this off remarkably well: James Brown, Michael Jackson, David Lee Roth, Steven Tyler to name a few. The language is almost secondary to the sound. And maybe this is where film fails Cobain's story, ultimately.

I did go back and listen to a few of Nirvana's tracks after watching this movie. The old feelings I have for them are fresh and alive. I miss Nirvana - but that's only because Cobain chose to end it much sooner than I wish he had. I wanted to see him grow. I wanted to see who and what he would become. I wanted to hear the journey. The time capsule of what remains is fascinating. The unfinished possibilities, as it goes in rock and roll legend, from Jimi Hendrix, to Jim Morrison to Janis Joplin and beyond, haunt me.