Product: Last Days (2 Disc Special Edition)
Rating: 3.0
Three and a half stars
A scrawny, blonde, mumbling figure wanders in a forrest. He comes upon a creek with a flowing waterfall, disrobes, wades for a bit, then stumbles out and pisses in the stream. This is the introduction to Blake, the main character in Gus Van Sants most recent film The Last Days. Blake immediately sticks out not like a sore thumb in the wilderness but a sore elephant. Something completely at odds with place and time in the lush wooded serenity. Wandering the hills of his secluded estate like a ghost, a former shell of what might have been, Blake elusively evades creeping friends, phonecalls and goes virtually unkown to even his houseguests. The soundtrack is rich with ambience. Cupboard doors bash and bang, bushes rustle eerily like voices and dialogues fade in and out resonating through the empty castle. The only thing that is sorely missed is more of the music. There are brief glimpses into Blake's creative process but they are too shortly lived. Maybe this is Van Sant's point though, not all ghosts moan. Some of them whimper. This IS a slow paced movie by todays standards, though when compared to Blockbusters crammed with enough stimulus, it's wholely refreshing and even tranquil. As the Cinematographer of the film Harris Savides explains, each scene doesn't need the action happening in frame, and we as an audience, can hopefully fill in the blanks ourselves becoming more active and glimpsing through the eyes of a fading man living out his "last days" Although this is no masterpeice by any means, Gus Van Sant continues to head somewhere brilliant cinematically and I, for one, am not complaining