Lucky enough for us here at ScreenAnarchy we've got a regular reader who managed to get himself into Cannes this year and has offered us his reviewing skills ... many thanks to CC for this and the following two reviews.
“I hate myself and I want to die.” Those are the words of Kurt Cobain, the subject of Gus Van Sant’s latest film. The film explores a voyeuristic and romanticized approach to the “last days” of the famed lead singer of the Seattle grunge rock band, Nirvana. Van Sant avoids making a bio-pic about the singer by taking liberties with the people, areas, and happenings in the final days before Kurt Cobain’s death.
I must admit my bias going into this film. I remember quite well the first time I heard Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” in February of 1992. I was listening to a radio in my bedroom when I felt the opening cords rattle my teeth. I could sense something amazing. It’s a feeling I’ll never forget.
Like many my age, this one simple song changed my perception of not only music but all of art as well. For the first time in my life, I felt I had something comparable to my Father’s generation with such icons as John Lennon and Bob Dylan.
Cobain’s music and legacy have had a large scale effect of my taste in music and art to this day. It was his music that voiced a generation of angst-ridden kids. Yeah, maybe we were all spoiled brats that truly had nothing to say but what made Cobain special was the fact that he broke through, as one of us. I believe, as many others, that he was a representation of how people my age felt. He was the voice of our time and not just said how we felt by screamed it with all of his will.
Thirteen years later, I find myself in the most historic and well-regarded theaters in the world, The Grand Lumiere. As I sat, I found myself pondering what plot would come of this semi-biographical film Kurt Cobain. Would Kurt Cobain actually want 5000 people watching and artistic interpretation of the final days before he committed suicide? Drawing artistic assumptions on the worst period of his tragically short life. The answer, as I soon discovered a few minutes in the film is absolutely not.
The film opens with the loosely based character in question named Blake wondering through the forest of the Pacific Northwest. After negotiating the woods with ease, he enjoys a swim by a waterfall and a mumbling of “home on the range” by campfire.
I did my best to ignore the naturalistic interpretation in hopes that the film would find some ground to truly explore Cobain as a person and not a junkie stumbling and singing through the woods. However, I found that Van Sant took everything that was known about Kurt’s final days and simply used it as a skeleton to make a film. I don’t believe he’s using it because it would draw attention to the film but I do believe that he as well as Michael Pitt have misinterpreted Cobain.
I felt Pitt wasn’t channeling Cobain but merely imitating him. The film goes to great lengths to have him mumbling as much as possible, singing in a similar fashion, and wearing clothes that are nearly identical to the ones that he was often seen in but for some reason abandons any sense of reality when it comes to the actions of Cobain.
I certainly didn’t expect any sense of realism in this film but I hoped for at the least a sense or understanding of Cobain’s life, being that is was the subject of the film. After all, the vast majority of the people who see this film will not be Nirvana fans, they will be college students looking for the next decent “indie”, film buffs, and people completely unaware how utterly different a picture Van Sant presents from actually events.
Stylistically, there are both moments that I loved and hated in this film. I absolutely love how Van Sant in confident in his shots and actors enough to let a scene run painfully long but sometimes I wonder if he goes for coffee breaks during shooting. There’s a sequence that begins with a tight shot on the window of Blake’s castle, as he picks up a guitar to play. The scene slowly pans out for what feels like 5 minutes. Nothing is really accomplished here and there’s certainly nothing to digest. The plot is virtually nonexistent and I found myself seeking any explanation whatsoever. These moments I find pretentious and this film is loaded with them.
While I don’t mind subjectivity, I do feel that there’s a sense of pseudo intellectualism here. Anyone willing to sit through so many scenes in which there is no progression in any form, be it narrative or artistic, is either searching too hard for meaning or has simply thinks they can explain anything and everything.
The film’s editing gave me a similar feeling. In typical Van Sant fashion, it isn’t structured like a classical Hollywood film. Rather, it’s jumbled and slowly assembles itself in the 3rd act. I truly felt this style of editing was used beautifully on his last film, Elephant, but didn’t work at all Last Days. I found myself growing impatient watching scenes more than once. Even if they were from another viewpoint or angle, I still found myself wanting Kurt to commit suicide. That’s right, this film actually made me want one of my childhood icons to kill himself! I didn’t think the editing style was effective at all and served little purpose to the narrative other than pseudo intellectualism.
When credits finally began to roll, I was stunned by the deafening audience reaction. It was much louder than many of the other films I had heard in previous days and took my by surprise as many people left in droves during the screening. I then wondered, are these people my age? Had they even paid attention in ’92?
I quickly made my way out of the one exist out of the Lumiere and stood outside the exist waiting to see the people who gave the film a standing ovation. As the masses began to pour out, I found I had to search a great deal to find people who looked as if they were my age. Most were a great deal older, some younger than me, and only a small minority looked to be near my age. I found myself in a state of shock that Cobain had found acceptance outside of teenagers some thirteen years later at the prestigious Cannes film festival but disheartened that the portrayal felt like a sidewalk artist painting.
Cobain once said, “I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.” Is there any doubt that he would want a film about himself to be paraded around film festival to film festival? Sold on DVD to conveniently watch in the comfort of your home. Why is it that this production doesn’t once seem to grasp the notion that fame and unwanted attention was the reason for his suicide. Something tells me that if there is an afterlife, that during the premiere of the film, Kurt was most certainly not anywhere to be found.
- CC
Review previously appeared on CC's own site, Into the Evening Rush.