Last Days

A mediation on sadness, desire, and lack of direction, LAST DAYS seems almost to stretch out its minutes. Its rhythms are deliberate, its images lyrical (courtesy of superb cinematographer Harris Savides), its mood alternately somber and droll. While the film moves slowly, its subject is strangely urgent, for you know from the start that this is Gus Van's Sant's much anticipated interpretation of Kurt Cobain's suicide. And so you know that the vulnerable, mumbling Blake will soon be dead. It's only a matter of time.

And yet the film is less depressing than quietly romantic, more emotionally elusive than morally judgmental. For some viewers, this approach to the legendary Cobain will be frustrating, even boring. But it is of a piece with Gus Van Sant's previous two films, Gerry (two young men lost in a desert) and Elephant (inspired by the Columbine High School shootings). That is, its lack of plot and lovely long takes and gently mobile frames reflect Blake's internal state, as he is increasingly dislocated from what appears a generic "rock musician's" existence.