Product: Last Days (2 Disc Special Edition)
Rating: 4.0
Terribly Underratted
I found Last Days to be a far better film than most critics and audiences seem to have found it. Not only was it watchable, despite being very slow, it was at times very funny and it was certainly a wonderful alternative to the cliche world of Rock and Roll bio-pickes. Van Sant doesn't for one second try to explain or over-indulge the audience with a sorrowful tale of one man's inability to cope with this fame. This is refreshing to me. Van Sant doesn't give us a cookie-cutter mold of what a film about a popular icon is supposed to be, so I was not sure what to expect, which helped me enjoy this film. Many are put off by the mumbling and incoherent rants of the lead character Blake played by Michael Pitt, but I found them to be funny, especially when he's attempting to communicate with a Yellow Book salesman who has him confused with a business owner. Its a slice of life-before-death film, and fans of Cobain should be warned about what NOT to expect. This is not a biopic, nor was it ever intended to be one. If anything, Van Sant is simply guessing what he belives it must have been like for the last day(s) of a man who has decided to kill himself. Visually the film was stunning, and Van Sant seems to be an expert at using the silence between people in order to emphasise natural noises, which gave me a nice sense of calm in watching the film, another reason why the movie was easy to watch. It was never hurried, and its shooting perfectly matched the script's and character's pacing.I find it very strange that so many people called Gus Van Sant's previous film Elephant a masterpiece and this one is being called a terrible film. They are shot the exact same way, and the tone and mood of both films are VERY similar. I thought Elephant's subject matter (a school shooting) wasn't appropriate for this style of film making where the audience is put down in a spot to merely observe events happening. Last Days, on the other hand, is more fitting. No matter how tragic Cobain's death was, I find it hard to compare the suicide of a rock star to the murder of several innocent school kids. If anything, Last Days gives us more to watch, as we actually have a character worth paying some attention to. True, Blake doesn't do much at all, but when he is spoken to by people, or when he's got a hunting cap on and creeping around his house with a rifle as if he was a hunter stalking prey, its easier to watch than a bunch of kids walking around for an hour, then have two other kids shoot them for half an our, which, basically, is what happened in Elephant. The character in Last Days may not be too in-depth, but at least there is a character worth caring about.A film like this also shows the importance of reading reviews before viewing. Most people get the film thinking, "Oh, its about Kurt Cobain. I like Nirvana, so I'll like this movie" without bothering to find out what makes this film so significant. This is not a movie about Kurt Cobain. This is not a movie about the tragic fall of a rock star. Really, its not a movie about much of anything, except a guy who walks around in a drug-induced hypnotic state shortly before he kills himself. Buyer beware. At any rate, I liked it.