LAST DAYS

OPTIMUM RELEASING

RELEASED 2 September 2005

Gus Van Sant is something of an ‘arty’ director, having been responsible for unusual fare like ‘Elephant’, ‘Gerry’, and ‘My Own Private Idaho’, although his occasional forays into the mainstream have produced popular fare such as the Oscar-winning ‘Good Will Hunting’ and Nicole Kidman’s first serious role ‘To Die For’. His only major misfire was the shot-for-shot remake of ‘Psycho’, which was an experiment that few people apart from himself were interested in seeing. ‘Last Days’ is an interesting curio that doesn’t really say much but is strangely beguiling and will delight fans of the band Nirvana.

Inspired by the ‘last days’ of grunge rock star Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994, we follow fictional musician Blake (Michael Pitt) wander around his huge rambling mansion in some kind of druggie stupor, mumbling inaudibly to himself and the hangers-on in his house. He’s barely able to cook a packet meal, or pour milk on a bowl of Coco Pops. ‘The Psychedelic Furs’ track ‘Venus in Furs’ plays more than once on the turntable while his friends similarly fall around in a haze. Blake seems to withdraw as far from the world as possible, taking overnight trips into the woods and standing in the river. What story there is involves a planned tour which Blake has no interest in.

First off - if you don’t like ‘arty’ or ‘weird’ movies, do not see this as you will hate it. There are moments where the camera lingers on a clutch of trees for nearly a minute, and a scene where two people are talking whilst driving but you can barely see them because the light through the trees from above is reflecting on the windscreen throughout. Much of the movie is very slow, confusing, and frankly unintelligible.

If you do like something a bit different, ‘Last Days’ contains two songs that are haunting in their intensity, and will appeal to fans of Nirvana’s music. The structure of the movie begins to fragment later on, with almost identical scenes playing for longer at the beginning or the end. It becomes hard to tell whether we’ve gone back in time or not, much like the foggy haze the characters are in themselves. The acting appears to be heavily improvised, and the story doesn’t really have a traditional three-act structure.

‘Last Days’ (or should that be ‘Daze’) doesn’t outstay it’s welcome at ninety minutes, and creates a mood that captures the excesses of drug use in rock ‘n’ roll. Unusual filmmaking. 

THREE OUT OF FIVE