his "I report, you decide" trilogy. But this one holds a special place
in my heart since it's about Kurt Cobain.
1994, the year the Nirvana leader committed suicide, was also the
year of my awakening into musical culture. Pearl Jam, Smashing
Pumpkins, Radiohead, Soundgarden, Green Day, Counting Crows,
Stone Temple Pilots, and, yes, Nirvana -- these bands comprise the
soundtrack to my teenage years. The release of "Last Days" is
perhaps akin to a Baby Boomer eagerly anticipating any sort of
output from the Beatles archives decades after the band called it
quits.
Van Sant's latest foray into the despairing world of an outsider finds
grunge rocker "Blake" (Michael Pitt, a dead ringer for Cobain)
fumbling around his decrepit mansion in the Pacific Northwest. He
doesn't speak coherently, he tries to avoid contact with his
numerous houseguests, and gradually appears resigned to the fact
that his life is over.
But like the real Cobain, within the tortured soul was a musician
yearning to break free. In one marvelous long take, Blake enters
his home recording space and loops guitars, drums, and that
familiar primal yell into a 5-minute outpouring of grudge angst. It's
like a Nirvana B-side that never got released.
The film is full of similarly long takes, the same kind that strung
together 2002's "Gerry" and 2003's "Elephant." Instead of offering
any insight to his characters, the director posits himself as a fly on
the wall, allowing his audience to analyze situations for themselves
-- or perhaps to suggest that sometimes madness indeed has no
explanation.
Without giving too much away, Van Sant inserts several subtle nods
toward religious iconography. (Actually, one is really obvious, but to
describe it would ruin a major plot development.) Boyz II Men's
1994 R&B ballad "On Bended Knee" is heavily featured in one
instance, as Blake drifts in and out of consciousness in front of a TV
screen. Viewers are treated to nearly the entire video. In another
sequence, one of the rocker's friends puts on an old Velvet
Underground LP; the lyrics to "Venus in Furs" could not be more
clear: "Speak so slightly, Severin, down on your bended knee."
This is either a plea to pray for the well-being of our
soon-to-be-gone hero, or a call to worship the musical genius a
distraught world could never understand.
Perhaps most emotionally, Van Sant ends his film with the
reconstructed death scene familiar to anyone even casually
immersed in Nirvana lore. It's a shot from behind the garden shed;
one Cobain foot lurched out from a limp, lifeless body; shotgun
painfully nearby. No matter how much feeling the filmmaker wants
us to project onto his coldly detached subject, in the end we are left
with no more answers than those we brought in.
Which is to sadly say, none at all.
