Product: Last Days (2 Disc Special Edition)
Rating: 2.0
Idle Worship
When I sat down to watch 'Last Days", I went into it with the fresh perspective of a viewer not already immersed in the talk about it. Being that I was a fan of a few other Gus Van Sant films, it would seem that enjoyment even with the process for which the film was made would warrent some cache. Dead wrong. 'Last Days' is 96 minutes in which neither the reasons for the main character's senseless death come to light nor does the film raise the most important question of all bio- or semibiographical films. This question being what made this person facinating to begin with?The long tracking shots that made Van Sant's last film 'Elephant' so powerful instead grate on the subject matter here. It effecively shows the interminable feeling that Blake felt with each passing day. Even when questioned by another person about how is day is going, his reply is '...just another day'.Michael Pitt (Murder by Numbers, The Dreamers) gives a very nuanced performance as Blake, a Cobain-esque rock musician beyond the brink. He stumbles through this role and mumbles to himself thoughout the whole film, not once actually speaking his thoughts to his friends. Instead, he spends his time avoiding them altogether.As nuanced as this performance is, there is just the smallest feeling that this is just a characture of the real Kurt Cobain. With the use of many of the imagery that we know of Kurt (the striped sweater, the cardigan, the ladies slip), it is clear that Van Sant is only playing with the surface.As the day unfolds, we begin to meet some of the 'friends' and hangers-on that live with Blake and come into his life. Again, like Blake himself, these characters aren't flesh out enough to understand why they liked him or even cared to be in his company. In fact, they come off as shallow as the surface with which Van Sant paints his story on.There are brief moments in which we get a sense in how much these people care for Blake. The night before Blake is found dead, Luke (played by Lukas Haas) stares at him as if he feels concerned. In that moment (along with with the cameo by Sonic Youth's Kin Gordon) do we ever get the feeling that Blake is even thought of.Three other scenes work, in ways, to make this movie seem undeniably purposeless. The party sequence, which the friends dance and sing to Venus in Furs by The Velvet Underground, did not add to the overall message of the film. It, however, catered to the hipster chic of the characters themselves. The scene in which Luke and Scott bed down together I found particularly offensive as a gay man. The scene neither furthered the plot nor gaves us insight into any of the characters. It was merely a cheap shot of a racy moment, using gay sex to be shocking. Unlike its use to open potential areas for discussion in 'Elephant', here it seems tacked on. The scene is which Blake's body is found, Van Sant uses the moment to break for the realism of the film to make a statement of rock worship, with the character's soul in a nude form assends to heaven.After watching this film, more doubts and questions are raised by it. What made Kurt Cobain such an interesting person begin with? Did it matter that he died or not? For those unfamiliar with Van Sant, watch 'My Own Private Idaho' or 'Elephant' instead. For those who are fans of Cobain, steer clear altogether. This film, if it does anything, seems to a justification for his suicide altogether