Customer Reviews

Last Days

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(67)

 

 

A few weeks ago I had an interesting experience. Trying to escape my family, I decide to spend the afternoon at the theater, catching up on some of the movies I've missed so far this summer. I began with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the Brad Pitt-Angelia Jolie action/comedy, and followed that up with Gus Van Sant's latest, Last Days. Smith had shoot-outs, car chases and fight sequences galore while in Last Days, well, nothing much seemed to happen. Yet one film had me bored to tears (literally!), while the other kept me riveted to my seat. Want to guess which is which?

If you don't know the answer, I suggest a little experiment. Rent both films when they're released on DVD (Last Days comes out the 25th of October) and just try sitting through the inane, incoherent Mr. and Mrs. Smith after having just watched what I consider to be the best film of the year so far. That being said, though, I strongly recommend seeing Last Days on the big screen. So much of my appreciation of this film comes from it's photography as Blake, a thinly disguised version of Kurt Cobain (played by Michael Pitt), is swallowed up by the vast, empty space all around him. This is a film about isolation, mood, setting, not story, and that's just what's conveyed in it's telling.

Now as anyone familiar with Van Sant's work is sure to tell you, his interest in linear film-making has been waning in recent years, a welcome respite after his two most 'mainstream' films (Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester) failed to live up to the potential of his previous career best, 1991's My Own Private Idaho. And with Last Days, he's finally made his masterpiece, a film for which his two prior efforts are likely to be remembered as dry runs and little more. And as unjust as that may be, you can clearly see a progression from Gerry, a good film, to Elephant, a very good film, to Last Days, a great one and his career pinnacle, much the way as Kurosawa used Kagemusha as a tune up for Ran.

The story, in case you're unfamiliar with Cobain's life (as I was prior to seeing this movie), follows a young musician who, after having recently escaped a stint in re-hab, spends his last days wondering his palatial estate, cooking macaroni and cheese, avoiding his hanger-on 'friends,' and composing lonely, morose songs that cling to your memory long after the movie has ended. It's in these scenes that Pitt, a singer himself, proves that he was the ONLY choice for the role. Often under-appreciated (in The Dreamers and Hedwig & the Angry Inch) or overshadowed (particularly by Ryan Gosling's tour-de-force performance in Murder by Numbers), Pitt's finally allowed to shoulder a feature film and proves himself worthy of comparisons to James Dean and River Phoenix.

If you're skeptical of that statement, just watch the way Pitt is able to convey so much through body posturing alone. His eyes obscured behind his greasy, golden locks for much of the film (with the exception of one particular scene where he's allowed to stare into the camera for seemingly an eternity), and his dialogue reduced to little more than incoherent mumbling, he still somehow manages to let us into the soul of the character. He's on screen for almost the entirety of the film and rarely shares a scene with any of his co-stars, but despite all these obstacles is still able to flesh out one of the best performances of this or any other year.

Of course, much hinges on your opinion of Cobain and his music, though you needn't been a Nirvana junkie to appreciate it. In fact, it wasn't until after seeing this movie that I bought my first CD of his, and in the few weeks since I've managed to consume almost a half dozen books on his life. It takes a rare movie to provoke such an insatiable curiosity in me, an experience which makes this film (oddly enough) incredibly life-affairing.

Remember the days when Gus Van Sant made pictures with actual dialogue? I do. I remember them fondly. "Drugstore Cowboy" is a movie I fell in love when I saw it in the theater, it still has a place in my heart. "My Own Private Idaho", while deeply flawed, was so ambitious. And "To Die For" is a sublime, sly comedy.

I think it's fair to say that Van Sant has been on a minimalist streak in recent years: minimal dialogue, minimal plot, minimal action, minimal narrative drive. His last three pictures were characterized by all this and filmed in loooong, stagnant shots. There was "Gerry", then "Elephant" and now "Last Days".

I will never criticize a filmmaker for working outside the mainstream and for developing a unique visual perspective. But it is easy for me to see why so many people hate these movies! But it's also easy for me to see why some people hold them in such high regard. And I won't say either group is wrong. With these films, it is largely a matter of taste. "Gerry", to me, was a crashing bore and an utter failure. "Elephant", I'm surprised to say, was a movie I found tremendous. And "Last Days"? I guess I'd split the difference. While it didn't have the emotional resonance of "Elephant", it wasn't nearly as tedious as "Gerry".

But I wouldn't necessarily recommend any of these films to the "average" movie goer. To most mainstream audiences--"different" is not a good thing. That's why Van Sant's "Good Will Hunting" is his most popular work--it's a genial crowd pleaser. Only seek out "Last Days" if you know what you're getting into--and don't come to get any insight into Kurt Cobain (it's not a biography).

Michael Pitt is a talented young actor, and I admire his work here. Yet he is also a dynamic performer--and that's what you'll miss. Catch him in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", "The Dreamers", and "Bully". This guy wants to be an actor, not a star--and I suppose, in some ways, that made him a good choice for "Last Days".

Some say Van Sant's last three pictures have been self-indulgent. Maybe so, but maybe that's not always a bad thing. KGHarris, 9/06.

I didn't expect to like this film given the plethora of bad reviews and held off watching it for a while. During the opening sequence where 'Kurt' (let's not pretend he's meant to be anyone else) staggers inexplicably through the woods I started to have my doubts but wasn't too concerned given I had readied myself for a potential dud. Yet as the film film progressed I became less and less concerned with the reasoning behind the unfolding events and started to simply 'feel' the tone of the film and where GVS was coming from in his interpretation of a modern tragedy.
Essentially the only narrative in this film is that Cobain (given the name Blake in this) had left this earth before he pulled the trigger, it doesn't seek to document the potential real life sequence of events, it is simply a rumination and in my view a beautifully realised one to the point where I considered it a work of art.
If you aren't interested or indifferent to Cobain then I'm not sure how you could enjoy this film because it demands a great degree of understanding and reverance for it's subject in order to appreciate what Van Sant is trying to communicate with it. The sequences are long, mostly without dialogue and with very minimal action involved (though beautifully shot); perhaps that was one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much, it was so different from the normal 'busy' style of most film and television.
I can only speak for myself in saying that had I listened to the naysayers and avoided it altogether I would have deprived myself of a great film experience.

From Smother Magazine smother.net:

It's obvious that this movie is supposed to follow Kurt Cobain's last moments on Earth before he commits suicide. What's not obvious is how badly this movie views. While I'm all for creative art films and I've liked many that most find obnoxious or outright boring, I can't stand movies that forget that we're supposed to be entertained. What director Gus Van Sant ("Elephant", "Good Will Hunting", "Drugstore Cowboy") does well is attach the state of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and societal indifference that Kurt must have been going through in his last moments. And certainly that would make this movie special-if it hadn't been dragged out for the entire movie. There's a lack of anything really going on. We watch as he swims in a stream in the opening, then makes a campfire, and then in the morning wanders back to his big house. And just as isolated as he indeed is after his escape from the detoxification center so is the audience. You sit there aimlessly watching a main character be aimless, knowing and anticipating the conclusion, but bored in the wait. Perhaps that's the irony isn't it? Our heroes can just be boring dorks that seem oh so majestic when the media props them up but when we peel back the layers we expose them for the sorry excuse that they truly are. It's just a shame that you have to sit through a movie this intensely boring to figure it out.

This film drips with pretension. I nodded off during one scene, then awoke to find the same locked-down shot playing out to no consequence. I do understand what was intended here. The mannered pacing is supposed to engage our senses in an unconventional way. If Van Sant wasn't a name director, however, people wouldn't give it a second glance and read into it what isn't there. But that's how it goes... certain artists are given license to bend the rules and sometimes it gives a medium a needed break from the conventional (uh, like Nirvana, irony of ironies). But there are other times when people get fooled by the contrived weightiness of a vehicle without a core, as in "Last Days", to not just see it as weak. This is weak.

I found Last Days to be a far better film than most critics and audiences seem to have found it. Not only was it watchable, despite being very slow, it was at times very funny and it was certainly a wonderful alternative to the cliche world of Rock and Roll bio-pickes. Van Sant doesn't for one second try to explain or over-indulge the audience with a sorrowful tale of one man's inability to cope with this fame. This is refreshing to me. Van Sant doesn't give us a cookie-cutter mold of what a film about a popular icon is supposed to be, so I was not sure what to expect, which helped me enjoy this film. Many are put off by the mumbling and incoherent rants of the lead character Blake played by Michael Pitt, but I found them to be funny, especially when he's attempting to communicate with a Yellow Book salesman who has him confused with a business owner. Its a slice of life-before-death film, and fans of Cobain should be warned about what NOT to expect. This is not a biopic, nor was it ever intended to be one. If anything, Van Sant is simply guessing what he belives it must have been like for the last day(s) of a man who has decided to kill himself. Visually the film was stunning, and Van Sant seems to be an expert at using the silence between people in order to emphasise natural noises, which gave me a nice sense of calm in watching the film, another reason why the movie was easy to watch. It was never hurried, and its shooting perfectly matched the script's and character's pacing.

I find it very strange that so many people called Gus Van Sant's previous film Elephant a masterpiece and this one is being called a terrible film. They are shot the exact same way, and the tone and mood of both films are VERY similar. I thought Elephant's subject matter (a school shooting) wasn't appropriate for this style of film making where the audience is put down in a spot to merely observe events happening. Last Days, on the other hand, is more fitting. No matter how tragic Cobain's death was, I find it hard to compare the suicide of a rock star to the murder of several innocent school kids. If anything, Last Days gives us more to watch, as we actually have a character worth paying some attention to. True, Blake doesn't do much at all, but when he is spoken to by people, or when he's got a hunting cap on and creeping around his house with a rifle as if he was a hunter stalking prey, its easier to watch than a bunch of kids walking around for an hour, then have two other kids shoot them for half an our, which, basically, is what happened in Elephant. The character in Last Days may not be too in-depth, but at least there is a character worth caring about.

A film like this also shows the importance of reading reviews before viewing. Most people get the film thinking, "Oh, its about Kurt Cobain. I like Nirvana, so I'll like this movie" without bothering to find out what makes this film so significant. This is not a movie about Kurt Cobain. This is not a movie about the tragic fall of a rock star. Really, its not a movie about much of anything, except a guy who walks around in a drug-induced hypnotic state shortly before he kills himself. Buyer beware. At any rate, I liked it.

Nicely photographed. That's the end of the good news. Absolutely dreadful script. The main characters stumble around in a stupor and mumble... scene after scene, after scene. After an hour or so it really gets old. Before buying this film I looked over the customer reviews and saw some people loved it an some people hated it. I had to see for myself. I quickly sided with the people who hated it. Maybe you need to see for yourself and decide.

If you're anything like me, you've probably read or seen a lot of the mixed reviews on this film and as a result are wondering if it's worth watching. I certainly approached this film with much trepidation after reading some visceral beatings it got from people who absolutely HATED it. And the other problem was that the people who praise it tend to praise it in a way that also makes it sound...well, not so appealing. I've been a fan of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain for admittedly not a very long time, I was still a little kid when Kurt killed himself so I sort of missed the era. Which means I have the (debateable) advantage of being able to look at the band through the eyes of a young adult. I recently watched About A Son, which absolutely crushed me. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it.

That being said, finally watching this movie I can see why it is so divisive. It is pretty much THE definition of a minimalist film. There is very little dialogue, and the vast majority of it is nearly inaudible. This is a film you need to throw the subtitles on to catch everything. Not to say that you're missing Shakespeare; the protagonist Blake is mumbling what you would expect an incoherent mumble to consist of. You get a guy who is mumbling to himself in a context only he understands, so as a viewer you're left to speculate. There are a lot of longs shots in this film that have absolutely no action or almost no action. One particular scene comes to mind where Blake is leaving the house and the camera stops following him to just stare at grass for about 30-40 seconds. For me personally, this made me think about the transience of a person you artistically adore's life, the fact that he just casually slips out of frame. For some viewers though, it's just going to be annoying, boring, and pointless. In order to enjoy this film, you are going to have to be sated as a viewer on small details, like watching Blake in a haze as he makes a bowl of cereal and then puts the milk on the counter and the cereal in the fridge. If you're the type of person who, when presented with a character who is alone and socially isolated 85% of the film, does almost no talking, and what he does say is mostly nonsense, thinks to yourself, "how odd and sad," you will probably enjoy this film. If you think, "this is boring and meaningless," there's a good chance you will hate this to varying degrees. Ultimately you're going to take away what you bring in. If you are sitting down and expecting some dynamism or even really structure in the final days of a heroin addict and the people who hover around him, you are going to hate this film. There's no way around that. But if you're like myself, who missed the whole event when it happened, or you were touched in some way by Kurt's whole tragic story, it does offer you a kind of emotional connection that you don't see as often as you should in film. I spent the whole movie wanting to intervene, to just jump in and prevent history. It does a good job of showing you just how inaccessible he was in his isolation there.

One final thought: Michael Pitt doesn't always resemble Kurt to me in the film physically, but there are a lot of shots were he very eerily looks exactly like him.

One of the reviews on the back on the box said, "...Gus Van Sant's Masterpiece!". What a load of crap that statement is. When I bought this DVD, I was expecting a fictionilized account of Nirvana Lead Singer, Kurt Cobain's last few days before he committed suicide. What I got was actor Micheal Pitt stumbling around, mumbling to himself, and falling down a lot. Most of the time I couldn't hear him at all, and what I could hear didn't make the least bit of sense. I suffered thru this "film" (and I use that term loosely), two times. Once to see it for the first time ever, then again with the subtitles on, which let me see what Micheal Pitt was really mumbling to himself. I know that "Blake" is supposed to be so messed up on drugs that he doesn't know what he's doing, but it makes for a really bad "film". One other thing, Lucas Haas is in this too, and the Gay scene he has is kinda wierd, it's like it was just tacked on for no other reason than it's something Mr. Van Sant wanted and didn't know where else to put it.
Overall I give this "film" a 2 out of 5 stars. Don't waste your time with it, go out and get one of the Doc-U-Drama's made about Kurt Cobain's Suicide instead. You'll be glad you did.

Silver Surfer
Jan. 7, 2010

In his review of "Last Days," Roger Ebert said it is "a definitive record of death by gradual drug exhaustion. After the chills and thrills of 'Sid & Nancy' and 'The Doors,' here is a movie that sees how addicts usually die, not with a bang but a whimper."

Ebert is right, and it's why this film works so well in my opinion. My girfriend was bored to the point of anger while watching this. I was transfixed.

I fully understand why some will be bored. Nothing much happens here. The camera crawls around a lot, seemingly uninterested in its subjects, meandering here and pausing there for no apparent reason. The "star" Blake barely utters a sentence. Supporting characters come and go without consequence or explanation. They talk at Blake sometimes, but we come to realize no one can talk "to" him.

Blake is utterly lost and alone, and if the film's point is to make us share in that experience, it is successful. Kim Gordon's character is the only one to make a real attempt at "saving" Blake from himself, but by that point we already know that he is beyond redemption.

Several movies have been made about addiction, some good, some bad. Last Days may be impossible to describe in such terms. It is, however, highly effective. It's only fault may be that it's far "too real" for the average Hollywood-fed consumer to digest.