Product: Last Days (2 Disc Special Edition)
Rating: 4.0
A Thought On The Split Opinions
If you're anything like me, you've probably read or seen a lot of the mixed reviews on this film and as a result are wondering if it's worth watching. I certainly approached this film with much trepidation after reading some visceral beatings it got from people who absolutely HATED it. And the other problem was that the people who praise it tend to praise it in a way that also makes it sound...well, not so appealing. I've been a fan of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain for admittedly not a very long time, I was still a little kid when Kurt killed himself so I sort of missed the era. Which means I have the (debateable) advantage of being able to look at the band through the eyes of a young adult. I recently watched About A Son, which absolutely crushed me. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it.That being said, finally watching this movie I can see why it is so divisive. It is pretty much THE definition of a minimalist film. There is very little dialogue, and the vast majority of it is nearly inaudible. This is a film you need to throw the subtitles on to catch everything. Not to say that you're missing Shakespeare; the protagonist Blake is mumbling what you would expect an incoherent mumble to consist of. You get a guy who is mumbling to himself in a context only he understands, so as a viewer you're left to speculate. There are a lot of longs shots in this film that have absolutely no action or almost no action. One particular scene comes to mind where Blake is leaving the house and the camera stops following him to just stare at grass for about 30-40 seconds. For me personally, this made me think about the transience of a person you artistically adore's life, the fact that he just casually slips out of frame. For some viewers though, it's just going to be annoying, boring, and pointless. In order to enjoy this film, you are going to have to be sated as a viewer on small details, like watching Blake in a haze as he makes a bowl of cereal and then puts the milk on the counter and the cereal in the fridge. If you're the type of person who, when presented with a character who is alone and socially isolated 85% of the film, does almost no talking, and what he does say is mostly nonsense, thinks to yourself, "how odd and sad," you will probably enjoy this film. If you think, "this is boring and meaningless," there's a good chance you will hate this to varying degrees. Ultimately you're going to take away what you bring in. If you are sitting down and expecting some dynamism or even really structure in the final days of a heroin addict and the people who hover around him, you are going to hate this film. There's no way around that. But if you're like myself, who missed the whole event when it happened, or you were touched in some way by Kurt's whole tragic story, it does offer you a kind of emotional connection that you don't see as often as you should in film. I spent the whole movie wanting to intervene, to just jump in and prevent history. It does a good job of showing you just how inaccessible he was in his isolation there.One final thought: Michael Pitt doesn't always resemble Kurt to me in the film physically, but there are a lot of shots were he very eerily looks exactly like him.