Last Days

I was/am a big fan of Nirvana & Kurt Cobain … I happened across the band back before they hit the mainstream, thanks to a friend that collected a few demo tapes on a trip to Seattle, and fell in love with the sound.

I’d hear a bit about Gus Van Sant’s Last Days - A movie loosely based on the last days of Kurt Cobain - and since I hadn’t heard a single middle of the road review of it, I put off watching it for quite some time. Everyone that’d seen it either absolutly hated it, or absolutly loved it. Well, I finally broke down and decided to give it a go.

I threw it into the DVD player with a very open mind - disregarding every opinion I’d heard about it and just allowed myself to sink in.

Last days is what it is … It’s an art piece, it’s an introspective look into the human condition, it’s a story about the shell of a person, Blake (or Curt), during his last days of existance or lack of. Mixed into the “plot” are the few people around him during those last days. It doesn’t attempt to explain a state of mind, rather it allows you to guess - giving you all the externals and surroundings without trying to make you feel anything in specific.

Everything about this film is very raw and somewhat unrehersed but put together in a very well thought out way. It’s not in any way “unprofessional”, but rather experimental work of a skilled writer and director. Rather than a script, the actors and director used an idea and a well researched background to create something that seemed very real.

Now, all that said - I do think there was a bit of room for improvment.

A smidge more background could have been added to the film, particularly for those that knew nothing about Blake (Kurt). I think someone knowing nothing about Kurt Cobain might find it very difficult to put the pieces together. A bit more insight into the external goings-on would have improved the experience without forcing anyone into a particular state of mind.

Some of the bit-parts were played by people Van Sant, almost literally, plucked off the street. A couple of them did well, but a couple of them were so awful that I found myself terribly anoyed. Although there were limited scenes with these offensive non-actors, they were enough to distract me from the movie and think about how bad they were.

So, overall it wasn’t a bad movie. If you have the attention span for something that forces you to think a bit and allows you to develop your own idea of whats really going on, you’ll enjoy it. If you don’t have the patience or just want mindless entertainment, STAY AWAY from this film - you will hate it.