Death of Cobain inspires a difficult, experimental movie from Gus Van Sant
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, July 21, 2005
The death of Kurt Cobain provides filmmaker Gus Van Sant with a fascinating, if opaque, subject for his new film. “Last Days” tracks the stations along the final path of an unhappy, addled rock star.
| Experimental: Gus Van Sant takes on the subject of the final days of Kurt Cobain (or a musician who greatly resembles Cobain), but in a completely experimental way. There’s no story, just a series of heavy tableaux that show a man (Michael Pitt) trudging his way toward death.
Rated: R rating is for language, nudity, subject matter. Now showing: Meridian, Neptune. |
The musician is not literally Cobain (he’s called Blake), but there is no mistaking the similarity: the hair, the clothes, the raw cry in the voice. Van Sant knew Cobain only slightly, but it’s tempting to speculate that he may have reflected on others who died young, namely River Phoenix (who starred in Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho”) and Elliott Smith (who did a song for Van Sant’s “Good Will Hunting”).
For a couple of days, Blake stumbles around the grounds and interiors of a rambling, isolated stone house, trudging his way toward death.
Blake is played by Michael Pitt, the star of “The Dreamers.” Pitt, who sings his own striking composition during the film, is charismatic enough in the role – especially considering there’s very little dialogue and no plot.
Van Sant has said he wants the film to work directly on the subconscious. Instead of following a story, the viewer must stare at the screen and witness a series of tableaux: Blake ambling through the woods, lugging a shotgun around his empty rooms, or listening to wild sonic noise on his stereo. The film looks stunning, thanks to the rich photography by Harris Savides.
Now and then other people intrude – Blake’s life appears to be full of intrusions, incessant and wearying – and perhaps offer a way out, or at least a breath of fresh air. There’s a conversation with two Mormon proselytizers, and a visit from a Yellow Pages sales rep who works hard not to notice the shambling mess Blake has become.
There are other hangers-on who sometimes pass through Blake’s house – including Lukas Haas and Asia Argento – and a private detective played by Ricky Jay. They’re like characters from more conventional movies that might be happening on either side of “Last Days,” but Van Sant never sticks with them. Instead, he returns to the death-obsessed person of Blake. Perhaps the film is mirroring the mindset of a would-be suicide, the inability to see outside one’s own narrow frame of reference.
“Last Days” is a pure experimental film, even more so than Van Sant’s previous pictures, “Elephant” and “Gerry.” As difficult as those movies could be, they offered a way in. “Last Days” feels like a dead end of interesting ideas: intriguing to think about after the fact, but very long to sit through.
Michael Pitt in “Last Days.”
