Last Days

Even though I really like some of Gus Van Sant's older movies (DRUGSTORE COWBOY, MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO,...) and I do appreciate the fact that he dares to do something different (in terms of stepping away even further from mainstream cinema) with his more recent work, he more or less lost me with LAST DAYS. I think with this movie, we see a director who's trying just a little bit too hard to be eccentric. I've read some comments of people who liked it a lot and went on and on about the deeper meaning of things. I've read things about this movie being an accurate and truly sad & touching portrayal of the decay of a musical genius. And some people clearly praise this movie because they're fans of Gus Van Sant, completely ignoring the movie's flaws. Well, that's all fine by me, but that's not the way I saw the movie.

When I call LAST DAYS hollow, I'm not saying it's insincere. Not at all, because it really feels like a sincere portrait of a musician bordering on the edge of sanity (and I'm not using the term musical genius, because at not one moment in the movie we get prove that he really is one, we just have to assume it, because he supposedly has a big upcoming tour to go on and a fellow musician asks his opinion on a song he wrote... but hey, that's fine by me). When I say LAST DAYS is hollow, I mean that it's an empty vessel with no contents. When people start saying that it's about being unable to communicate with each other or that it's about friends draining you emotionally or blah blah blah... I just can't help laughing that away. Because not one single person in the movie actually does something. They all just hang around, sleeping, doing nothing, occasionally listening to music... (well okay, Blake has two moments where you can see him making music and singing a song, those were two solid one-shot sequences and I enjoyed them a lot). But apart from that, nothing happens.

And what about Michael Pitt deserving an Oscar for his role as Blake? You got to be kiddin' me! You can see him wearing a dress. You can see him fooling around with a gun. You can see him stumbling around in the house and through the forest. And you can see him eat something in the kitchen. That's it. And what's worse, he always mumbles the few lines he has in a way that it's almost incomprehensible. But I guess that's what you get when you're a burned out junkie. Assuming Blake IS a junkie, that is. Because we never get any evidence or hints as to why he's losing his mind. Everybody thinks: oh, he's into rock'n'roll, so it must be drugs. Has it ever occurred to anyone that, besides being severely anti-social, he might also be suffering from a psychological affection? Like insomnia or autism or whatever? Once again Gus Van Sant doesn't feel the need to enlighten us with more information. No info, no plot... sounds more like a registration than a movie, doesn't it? And then, after the 'movie' is over and we have absolutely learned nothing about our protagonist, Gus Van Sant has the pretension to show us some written text explaining that this movie is based on the last days of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. I mean, if he had the rights to use Kurt's name in the end credits, then surely he could have build some more references to his real life in the plot, no? It just feels pretentious and above all, a smart move to draw public attention to the movie. Because, way before the movie came out, everybody already knew that it supposedly was about the final days of Kurt Cobain. Seriously, if that little text would not have been there at the end of the film, and this movie was just about some unknown musician, I would have considered this to be a much better movie and would certainly have enjoyed it more. It simply would have worked much better for me that way, and I would have rated the movie much higher because of it.

However... I must say this: The cinematography is absolutely beautiful. And the camera-moves and angles are subtle, nicely framed and to the point. In fact, I believe that if you, at any given moment, would take a still of any frame in the movie, you would always have a perfect photograph. One of my favorite shots was when the camera slowly pulls back from the window when we see Blake playing various instruments inside the house. It must have lasted at least 5 minutes or so. Pretty brilliant. Another good thing was that the movie had a consequent unworldly feel to it. And it was also fun seeing Van Sant doing his ELEPHANT-trick again: Showing the same scene from a different point of view later in the movie. Sadly, these were the only things that kept me going through the movie.

So even if I think LAST DAYS was pretty bad for the reasons mentioned above, I'm gonna be extremely mild in my final judgement. I'll add one point for every aspect I liked: The cinematography. Asia Argento running around in her underwear. Kim Gordon was in it. The little music that was in it, was good (Thurston Moore was involved with the music). So there you have it: 4 out of 10 stars.

Nirvana were big around about the time I was in my teens so I do have a certain amount of cultural involvement in his suicide. By this I'm not claiming anything special, just saying that it was an event I remember from the time rather than since. As such I was quite interested in seeing this film although I did think it would be detailed than it was. Instead it is literally "Blake's" last days in a remote house with a group of friends. We see him in a state of isolation, falling deeper into whatever it is that is eating at him from the inside out. Van Sant has drawn this fall out over 90 minutes where, lets be honest, not a great deal actually happens.

To some viewers this has given the film a tragic and haunting quality that has produced a lot of insight into the man Blake. I am not one of those viewers. It wasn't that I was waiting for the film to do a lot of work for me or spoon-feed me emotions, but I did need more than what was delivered and I confess that the film bored me intensely at some points. Van Sant has written these last days and based them on Kurt Cobain but I would have liked him to have imagined a bit more detail in his character and perhaps done more than delivered some stroppy teenager silently moping around the place until the inevitable happens (and even that is done in a very low key way). It is hard to fault the intimate nature of Van Sant's filming but this is very different from getting into the character and actually benefiting from this degree of perceived intimacy.

Pitt does as he is told and spends most of the film looking through his hair in a sort of creative and tragic way. Without any dialogue to speak of (sorry) this is all he can really do and I found it totally unconvincing and uninteresting – which is a pretty big failing given that he is supposed to be the heart of the film and the reason we have all come along. The rest of the cast are fairly unimportant and it says a lot that the only one that held my interest was Ricky Jay – but that was only because he was Ricky Jay.

Perhaps this will really touch major fans of Cobain but it did nothing for me at all. Silent and surprisingly dull, this badly needed depth and insight as well as a serious and respectful tone.

SPOILER WARNING....

Now i will be commenting on a few things in the film but whether or not they can be considered spoilers i will leave up to you, my own personal opinion is that a film must first have a plot before it can be spoiled in any way.

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Well i just finished watching this film 20 minutes ago so i'm writing this fairly fresh and still haven't completely formed an opinion of it, its probably best me writing these comments in this state of mind because most of you will probably be thinking the same thing.

I watched this film without reading any reviews seeing any ratings or hearing about it through word of mouth, after 2 minutes of seeing Micheal Pitt as "Blake" you will clearly see Kurt Cobain, 30 minutes later you will be slightly confused by just what the hell you are watching and for a time this movie will seem like a chore to watch and if i'm honest it just carry's on like that.

So why then did i give it 7 out of 10? Because roughly an hour into the film i was actually impressed by something, up until this point in the film all you see is a blonde skinny guy fumbling around looking like his half way to falling asleep or down a flight of stairs, this is pretty much what you have watched up to now. Then he starts playing guitar and singing, now i have been a Nirvana fan since i was 13 years old and that spans almost half my life time, this one scene reminded me why. Its a shame this is a movie site otherwise i could carry on with a review that could get me hired by rolling stone, but it isn't so i won't.

To sum up, if your looking for a source of entertainment please forgive me for the caps and DO NOT WATCH THIS. This is not a film you watch to be entertained in any form, if you watch this searching for something to give you a thrill or move you in anyway you will most likely be let down by it, an example of why this would be so? how about at one point in the film you are watching a TV showing a Boyz 2 Men video for the entire duration.

However, if you want to watch a film with some incredible acting, great direction and is a good deal different to anything else thats had a decent size release to it lately this might be for you.

It may also be worth it for Nirvana fans to check out. ;)

Just watched this movie a couple of hours ago. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I'm a big fan of Gus Van Sant so I wasn't prepared for this pretentious little number!! It was long, long, long. I sat with the remote control in my hand wanting to press the FF button but out of respect for this great director I chose not too. I hoped something towards the end might enlighten........nope. The actors however did a good job with what they were given and I did like the boys from 'the church of the Latter day saints' scene. Was it supposed to be based on Kurt Cobains last days?? I honestly hope that the good man Kurt did not spend his last days in such a boring capacity. I was also a fan of grunge in the 90's, I hoped for more of a grungy feel to the movie and maybe some more music. It was too light on music, drug scene etc. If you're after an entertaining, music-filled homage to Kurt Cobain..this is not the movie for you. Too soft for me

It is ironic that in an era of high-speed communications and hyper-dimensional physics that the children of these creations would choose to express their exacerbations in a primal mumble of modern madness, while sleepwalking through their nightmare.

The Director's low-key, laid back, and standoff style are appropriate, with little dialog using sound and fluid composition to facilitate the ethereal essence of the environment.

A parallel but not a specific profile, the similarities to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain are a worthwhile comparison. Entering the mind and the world of a tortured and talented person is not going to be entertaining, but it is a different, difficult detour to a road to nowhere.

It is a vast, expansive and mostly empty space, an unknowable territory and it smells like spiritual suicide.