"Can somebody tell how to get things back, the way they used to be?" – Boyz 2 Men
Though a brave and interesting film by Gus Van Sant, "Last Days" never really works, failing to approach the greatness of his previous effort, "Elephant".
The idea here is to have a suicidal artist (a stand in for Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain) emerge from some self-imposed exile (the forest) and dwell in the various rooms of a mansion before killing himself.
Like Resnais' "Last Year At Marienbad", the mansion represents the past and various memories, which the artist leafs through before his death. It's also a place of thoroughly banal events, the artist prosaically making macaroni and cheese, strumming on his guitar, watching TV and generally sulking about like a pre-speech caveman.
The film works as an exercise in demystification, Van Sant careful not to romanticise the artist, but it works best at conveying the incredible pain and torture this character must have been feeling on the day of his death. One scene in particular, in which the artist listens to the super-cheesy Boyz 2 Men song, "On Bended Knee", resonates well, the lyrics yearning for those happy days before the onset of his depression.
7.5/10 – A recent British film called "Control" did this stuff better, chartering the demise of Joe Division front-man Ian Curtis. Likewise, films like Antonioni's "Red Desert", Tarr's "Damnation" (which Gus Van Sant cites as an influence) and Haynes' "Safe" convey the existential woes of their characters with a sort of toxic elegance. "Last Days" never really approaches the strength of those films. The question then becomes, can a film that accurately portrays suicide and clinical depression work at all? Or should it be unwatchable, suffocating its audience with total despair and noxious futility?
Worth one viewing.
Though a brave and interesting film by Gus Van Sant, "Last Days" never really works, failing to approach the greatness of his previous effort, "Elephant".
The idea here is to have a suicidal artist (a stand in for Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain) emerge from some self-imposed exile (the forest) and dwell in the various rooms of a mansion before killing himself.
Like Resnais' "Last Year At Marienbad", the mansion represents the past and various memories, which the artist leafs through before his death. It's also a place of thoroughly banal events, the artist prosaically making macaroni and cheese, strumming on his guitar, watching TV and generally sulking about like a pre-speech caveman.
The film works as an exercise in demystification, Van Sant careful not to romanticise the artist, but it works best at conveying the incredible pain and torture this character must have been feeling on the day of his death. One scene in particular, in which the artist listens to the super-cheesy Boyz 2 Men song, "On Bended Knee", resonates well, the lyrics yearning for those happy days before the onset of his depression.
7.5/10 – A recent British film called "Control" did this stuff better, chartering the demise of Joe Division front-man Ian Curtis. Likewise, films like Antonioni's "Red Desert", Tarr's "Damnation" (which Gus Van Sant cites as an influence) and Haynes' "Safe" convey the existential woes of their characters with a sort of toxic elegance. "Last Days" never really approaches the strength of those films. The question then becomes, can a film that accurately portrays suicide and clinical depression work at all? Or should it be unwatchable, suffocating its audience with total despair and noxious futility?
Worth one viewing.