Last Days
Watching Gus Van Sant’s new batch of films is kind of like meditating. You could easily loose patience and end up fiddling your way through it, but it’s a rewarding experience if you have the mettle to focus properly.
Let’s be honest – there isn’t an abundance of plot here. The film’s a gentle poetic reflection on death and the demystifying of legends, and you don’t necessarily have to pay much the utmost attention to understand that. Hell, you can even zone out in large patches and just let the whole thing wash over you if you wish – one gets the feeling it was kind of made that way.
Obviously, you can’t review this without mentioning Kurt, as the film itself eventually does in the end credits. While this isn’t a direct rumination on the grunge god (it certainly doesn’t make any attempt in trying to explain his actions in the last days of his life – a mistake he made in the otherwise excellent Elephant when he awkwardly attempted to dig deep into the psyche of two kids who go all Columbine by showing them playing violent video games and pashing each other before committing their crimes.) there’s enough small things floating around the mise-en-scene that strike a chord with the story of Kurt without ever really being blunt about it. Michael Pitt as the faux-Cobain isn’t bad, but basically he just acts as weird as he can and mumbles incoherently to himself at every opportunity. Fun to play, I’m sure, but not quite a pleasure to watch, and more cartoon than I was expecting.
On a scene-for-scene basis these films certainly have the potential to bore you senseless, but the starkness of story and action coupled with the profusion of slow lingering shots all draw you in and raise your intrigue so when something does happen, it’s magnitude is sharply amplified. I can imagine why these films could be hard to stomach for a great deal of people, since they both walk the tenuous line between arty brilliance and undergrad wank, slipping over to both sides almost as equally, but personally I love the style and intent of Elephant and Last Days, think they are both strongly compelling without ever being truly interesting, and am glad Van Sant is back on track and making these curious little oddities.