LAST DAYS
Directed, Written & Edited by: Gus Van Sant.
Produced by: Dany Wolf.
Director of Photography: Harris Savides.
Released by: Picturehouse.
Country of Origin: USA. 97 min. Not Rated.
With: Michael Pitt, Lukas Haas, Asia Argento, Scott Green, Nicole Vicius & Ricky Jay.

Writer-director Gus Van Sant stops short of assigning the characters who populate his latest film, Last Days, a name. Actor Asia Argento plays "Asia." Scott Green is "Scott," and so on. Van Sant, moreover, employs narrative devices like plot, character development and dialogue sparingly to a story that is familiar enough: the drug-fueled dissipation of a troubled, rich and famous artist. The artist, in this case, is Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of the grunge band Nirvana, who committed suicide in 1994.

Luke (Michael Pitt), the Cobain-based character, is holed up with hangers-on in a decaying, remote mansion. In almost identically filmed scenes, he wanders about, quietly stoned, nodding out, collapsing. His hangers-on listen to “Venus in Furs” in other similarly filmed scenes. And in still more repetitive sequences, Luke sheepishly scurries off to the woods - the only thing Luke does do with a vengeance is pursue his isolation. His drug use takes place off screen. He does sing one song - alone in his living room.

On one hand, this all adds up to an unconventional telling and avoids the clichés that can sink a rock star biopic. No lovers' quarrels or high drama of, say, The Rose or The Doors here. On the other hand, the effect of Van Sant's approach is less than engaging. Another problem is that the director seems uncritical of his hero: the hangers-on behave less than admirably; but the worse thing Luke seems to do is not take the advice of a friend who arrives to save him. Is Luke somehow above his fellow addicts simply because he's talented? The film is even dedicated, in the closing credits, to Cobain.

Michael Pitt is on a definite career path (the actor played a rock star in John Cameron Mitchell's inspired Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a young man involved in a ménage à trois in Bernardo Bertolucci's problematic The Dreamers). Like the inspiration for Last Days, he's attractive and talented, which is one reason you might be left wanting more from the film.

Van Sant has conducted a similar experiment in minimalism with Gerry, where the results are superior. For one thing, its two characters, who barely speak a word, are fictional, framed by striking natural surroundings, and for another, the audience doesn't already know the ending.
Steven Cordova, contributing editor and poet (Slow Dissolve, Momotombo Press)
July 22, 2005