Product: Last Days (2 Disc Special Edition)
Rating: 2.0
Last Days Offers Two Lost Hours
Once again, for the third time in a row after Gerry and Elephant, Gus Van Sant has forced me to be a part of his personal exploration of film. He has an uncanny ability to make ninety minutes seem like days. It seems that his direction is no longer about getting his audience to have a reaction, but instead it's now entirely about his selfish desire for different film techniques and experimentation.Last Days is a fictional account of what may have happened during Kurt Cobain's final days. What happens in the life of a rock star right before he blows his head off? Apparently, it includes running through the woods, cooking macaroni and cheese, and stumbling around the house incoherently with a shotgun. That's it.Kurt's character, Blake, played by Michael Pitt, has absolutely no meaningful dialogue with anyone in the movie. The closest he comes is when a yellow pages salesman tries to sell him some ad space in his book. This is a 10 minute scene about ad space in a phone book. What does this have to do with anything? Much like the rest of the activity in the movie, absolutely nothing.The sub-characters around Blake are so thin they feel like unnecessary backdrops. They offer very little dialogue or purpose in the film other than to add some color and a few humorous scenes. It's never explained who these people are, if they're members of Blake's band or just friends. They're more annoying than anything when the fascination in the movie lies solely on Blake's character. Pitt does a nice job of mumbling this character around and truly capturing Kurt's mannerisms and paranoia. Somewhere in the middle of the random stumbling, mumbling and walking around, there's a scene from the outside of a window where on the inside Blake begins to mix music. He starts a guitar riff, loops it, starts another, loops it and within seconds a song unfolds, an introduction to the first music of the film and good enough to be on any of Nirvana's albums. This was one of the few enjoyable scenes that allowed me to travel back to the days of grunge and think about the genius of this guy that put a hole in his head. Still, even with these tiny moments of brilliance, Blake's movements become repetitive and tired as does the search for anything interesting in this film.In a way, I admire Van Sant's minimalism in picture and dialogue. With this film, it creates a tension that forces the viewer to participate emotionally. On the other hand, the dialogue is so sparse, it becomes nearly impossible to connect with any of the characters. At the end of the movie I have to laugh when "Written and directed by Gus Van Sant" appears. Written? What did you write Gus? I'd love to see this screenplay. Blake walks through the woods. Blake puts on a dress. Blake mumbles. Other people get high and run around the house ignoring Blake. Blake dies. The end. Brilliant. This might be funny if I was joking, but there is no script for this movie. The actors literally make up their own dialogue.Last Days may be a pointless experiment in film and seemingly a complete waste of time, but there's a mysterious quality about it that makes it not totally worthless. Van Sant's mastery of the camera and continuous shot allows the film to breathe in a way that sometimes makes the viewer feel tingly. While he takes advantage of his power to captivate audiences with what seem like 20-minute-long real-time moments of Blake staring into space, I find it hard not to take this time to put myself in this character's shoes. Could this be the point? Is there something to be learned after all? If the scene wasn't followed by a random gay sex scene with Lucas Haas and some other junky, I'd say yes. The fact is that although there are some clever and redeeming scenes, there just isn't enough material here to make up anything other than an artistic display of fine camera work.I haven't given up on Van Sant, just yet. He's done some terrific work in the past and I still believe he's a fantastic director. From now on, however, I'll stick to the movies where he's let someone else do the writing.