Last Days
(HBO Home Video Region 1 NTSC DVD)
(2005)
review by Died with Boots On

This third and final brick in Gus Van Sant's existential wall, following "Gerry" and "Elephant," "Last Days" is a stylistic film that depicts the dank and ill-lit wilderness that addicts usually trudge through, not the thrilling, "live fast, die young" undertones of "Sid & Nancy" and "The Doors," going out not with a bang, but a whimper. "Gerry" was a story about two men both named Gerry who incompetently drove off the beaten path, winding up disconsolately lost in the desert, going unmissed and unfound. "Elephant" is a retelling of Columbine, where a self-destructive student and his accomplice came into school wielding guns, leading to their own deaths. And now, "Last Days" is a tribute to the notorious grunge god, Kurt Cobain, in his final hours. Although the film distances itself from the Nirvana front man in a disclaimer stating, "Characters are in part, fiction," it is later noted before the final credits roll that the pseudo-documentary was dedicated to the musician's life.

Although the velocity of the movie is typical of Van Sant's painfully methodical pace, it is a hypnotically visual experience. Cinematography is my forte, and I was entranced by the color schemes, lingering frames of the Seattle house, interpolated with actual shots of the Cobain chateau, and the manifestations of the early nineties culture. And although some find the inaudible mumblings of Blake (Pitt), our Kurt Cobain stand-in, to be distasteful and galling, I thought it was a motif necessary to the film's mood. Promenading hand-in-hand with the disjointed sputtering of our protagonist is the camera's eschewal of Blake's face, hiding it behind sunglasses or under a feathered hood, preferring wide panoramas to close-ups.

As I've already mentioned, the movie follows a brain-addled songwriter, Blake, living out the grunge philosophy, but debilitated because of his fried psyche. We gaze at the kaleidoscopic images of Blake interacting with admirers in a downtown bar, his fellow band members and friends, and the people that freeload off of his fame and fortune. In one scene, we witness one of Blake's "friends" recommending that Blake purchase a jet engine to heat his mountain citadel, while his other friends drunkenly stumble about, breaking things and singing air headedly along with The Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs."

Making a cameo in the film is the Sonic Youth's own Kim Gordon, playing Blake's record executive. Referencing the daughter that Kurt left behind after his suicide, Kim asks, "Do you talk to your daughter? Do you say 'I'm sorry that I'm a rock and roll cliché?'" Blake is so detached from his identity that he forms a wall around himself, shirking friends and fans that desperately want to help him. Harnessing the mentality of Kurt Cobain, not to mention the physicality and wardrobe, Blake stumbles around in a black lacy dress that Kurt wore at his last performance, dragging the snout of a shotgun on the hardwood floor. His fellow band members, Luke (Haas) and Asia (Argento), find him passed out on the other side of a closed door, or in his greenhouse where he is drafting an illegible rambling of his experiences that later turns out to be his suicide note.

If you've resided under a rock for the past decade and a half, then read no further, for I am about to divulge the bombshell ending. Remaining true to Kurt Cobain's story, his lifeless corpse is discovered by the gardener in the greenhouse the morning after his suicide. In an epilogue to the story, we watch as Blake's ghostly superimposition rises out of the carcass, and begins climbing up a series of windowpanes that mirrors a ladder. As the closing credits role, a surreal sequence plays out that leaves the audience speechless as the paramedics arrive and zip the rock star into a body bag.

This is a must-see for Kurt Cobain fans such as myself, or Gus Van Sant fans, such as myself. During one vignette, Michael Pitt delivers the vocals and plays the acoustic guitar for a Nirvana reminiscent song written by Mr. Van Sant, sounding as if it came off of a Nirvana album, and yet is so distinctly original that it is that much more memorable. In an earlier scene, Blake can be found recording a song in a Cobain-like fashion by playing an assortment of different instruments but recording them onto the same tape, melding together to form a really spellbinding track. The music is an added bonus to the drama, but is also Van Sant's back breaking attempt at a thickly atmospheric film, something he only half accomplishes as the setting is only marginally off. This provocative film is Andy Warhol meets Oliver Stone meets Jonathan Kaplan, however, it is certainly not for everyone. But those that enjoy the grunge culture, the life of Mr. Cobain, or previous works of Mr. Van Sant will find that this is their element.

Kurt Cobain was once quoted as saying, "It is better to burn out than fade away." I think we can all appreciate the relevance.