Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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83 of 100 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Film-Making 101, September 8, 2005
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.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Self-Indulgence or Art -- Let's Split The Difference, September 24, 2006
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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Give it a chance - you might be surprised, August 4, 2006
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.
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