Last Days (2005)

Average rating

(45%)

Starring:	Michael Pitt \| Lukas Haas \| Asia Argento \| Scott Green \| Nicole Vicius
Director:	Gus Van Sant
Studio:	OPTIMUM HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Run time:	97 mins
Genres:	Drama
Languages:	English
Released:	January 02, 2006
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Blake is a rock star. Brilliant but beset by demons, he is slowly buckling under the weight of fame. Rarely emerging from the faded elegance of his mansion, he has cut himself off from the hangers-on, the parasites and users who once taunted his every waking moment. Hiding even from his friends, refusing help, Blake descends ever deeper into inner turnoil until eventually he realises he has only one way out... Inspired by the last days and final hours of the iconic Kurt Cobain, Gus Van Sant's tells the mesmerising story of a soul in transition.

Rating of 3 stars out of 5

Michel de Nostradamus's prediction about the world ending in July 1999 has proved to be wide of the mark. But with warnings about global warning continuing to go unheeded, there's an eerie prescience about Toshio Masuda's catastrophic vision. With giant slugs turning the seas red, vegetation mutating and monsters roaming the desolate wilderness, this can either be viewed as a dire portent of biospheric and civil meltdown or as a camp classic. A vaguely similar scenario informs Nostradamus: Fearful Prediction (1995), which was sponsored by a religious cult and was, unusually for a Japanese film, directed by a woman, Yumiko Awaya.

Highest rated reviews

27 out of 30 people found the following review helpful:

what a disappointment

Paula Sheppard from London, 6th September, 2005

What a heap of cr*p! This movie left me waiting for the poor guy to die just to be put out of my own misery. It does not take a lot of brain power to imagine what someone wandering around in a stupor looks like. But Gus van Sant uses 89 painful minutes to illustrate this simple idea. And nothing else. I’m all for arty movies that embrace long, quiet scenes of hedgerow (ahem)… if there is something to back it up, some point. This movie has nothing. There is almost no dialogue and what little there is mostly unintelligible. You learn nothing about the characters or the music and are left feeling cheated and bored. Kurt Cobain deserves a better portrayal of his last days, even if they were this banal. Damn, a potted plant deserves better and would be more entertaining.

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18 out of 23 people found the following review helpful:

I thought it was great

pipedreambomb from from Harrogate, 14th January, 2006

As a slow (SLOW) paced film, I'm not surprised if it disappointed most of the Nirvana fans the marketing campaign would have attracted. Hell, I saw adverts for it all over the Leeds Festival last year and I don't think even 10% of the people I met there would have liked it. But I did. Not in an elitist, 'I can appreciate art so I'm great' way, I really walked out of the cinema moved. Subdued, placid, contemplative... a blockbuster it ain't. In fact, there's so little going on at times that's it's hard to say what there is. It's a film of isolation when surrounded by people. It's the desparation of a person no longer able to communicate and having to hide from former friends and hangers-on within his own estate. It follows the way a great talent can be exploited and pushed, and can corrupt others to the point that everyone wants a piece, no matter how small, until the man inside has gone. It's a mood piece that couldn't be delivered in any other format than film, but isn't strictly a movie. I heartily recommend you watch it if this review hasn't scared you off.

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18 out of 28 people found the following review helpful:

A question?

froggy5 from West Yorkshire, 14th January, 2006

What was Gus Van Sant thinking when he made this awful film? I know. He woke one morning and thought I'll make a film based on the last days of Nirvana's front man... Ah but how am I going to make it last over an hour and a half. I know... I'll fill it with painfully long takes of nothing. Including an eight minute slow zoom out shot of a window where the lead protagonist is playing the guitar. To add to that I will use non sensicle non diajectic noise. Take a tip from me Van Sant, watch 'Once upon a time in the West' if you want to learn about sound techniques. Luckily spatial time can just be followed as we see it getting dark. A terrible film, terrible direction. Monosolubic dialouge and dire cinematography/ sound make this one of the worst films I have seen in a long time.

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Most recent reviews

Really good film

A Customer from London, 13th November, 2008

Okay, this definitely isn't one for those who like their films to be laid out easily for them. I must admit that I was cautious when approaching this film, as some of Gus Van Sant's more recent efforts, though visually and atmospherically outstanding, have left me feeling that the real essence of drama and character is being sacrificed for pretension. I think this film finds that balance; yes, not much happens, but it's difficult not to feel for Blake, particularly when you know what the final outcome is going to be. This isn't going to be to everybody's taste, but if you like (very) slow moving films that are more about atmosphere and emotion than hitting plot points, it's worth looking into.

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