Film as Poetry, Film as a Song

Everything we experience in life is different for everyone ~ 2 people can be looking at the exact same flower, for example, and each will be perceiving it entirely differently, based upon a myriad of factors too vast, complicated and profound to go into here. The simplistic explanation is, of course, that we have not been living the same lives, having the same experiences, being the same person.

Gus Van Sant's Last Days is a film that brilliantly takes this phenomenon into account. By not even attempting to compose a 'standard'-type scenario, with the traditional elements of plot, dialogue, set-ups, pay-offs, explanations - all the 'normal' things that most people expect a movie to give them (a commercial movie, anyway), he has constructed something much, much deeper and far more profound: he has given us a motion picture that exists as free-form poetry or as a song, where the 'rules' are exceedingly more non-literal and abstract.

In an artfully written poem (as with a great song), the words (or lyrics) exist in their own reality, creating and evoking that reality as they unfold, allowing each moment to be the impetus for the next. It makes sense, a good poem (or song), even if you can't exactly explain what it's about, what every word or phrase actually means - it's the FEELING you get from it that moves you every time you read it (or hear it), and if you try to explain to other people what you feel about it, they most likely will not feel exactly what you feel, even if you find people who share your deep connection to the poem (or the song).

Last Days EVOKES, from the very first frames to the very final ones and beyond. Of course Van Sant wasn't there with Kurt on his last days on this planet, and of course he has no idea what really was going on in Kurt's mind during that period (or any other). He doesn't presume to try to give us that. What we get, rather, is a soulful, lovingly heartfelt meditation on one individual's state of being. The person in question happens to have been a supremely gifted musician, whose music came from a place of magnificent purity and intense pain, a person who, through his music, spoke to a generation in a way that only a musician (or a writer) could. This is depicted as well, in the movie's best scenes, where Michael Pitt (who more than evokes Cobain in this performance - there are no words for what he achieves here) plays music; in the midst of his near-incoherent primal state, he is still in touch with his essence, his soul - the music.

If you go into this movie thinking it will explain to you who Kurt was, or if you think it will match some image you have in your head of who he was or might have been, you'll be disappointed. Or if you stumble into the theatre not even knowing much about its subject, you might not understand what's being offered here. I was a very big follower of Nirvana, and particularly, Kurt, who of course was the soul of the band. I had a strong feeling for him and a supreme respect for what he was able to wrench out of himself, vocally, lyrically, all the rest. This movie blew me away, quietly, without any fanfare, without any warning.