Gus Van Sant's "Last Days" (2005)

[Chris Knipp]

LAST DAYS

"It's a long lonely journey from death to birth:" Gus Van Sant's rock epiphany

Review by Chris Knipp

Not everyone will love Last Days. Nonetheless it concludes a minimalist trilogy that does more to build Gus Van Sant's cred as a serious and original filmmaker than anything since Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. And in its way it's every bit as good as its predecessors, Gerry and Elephant, and like them is HBO-sponsored and exquisitely filmed in a boxlike and claustrophobic small format. The irony is that this career-making role for the young Michael Pitt that Last Days contains is one in which he only mumbles and hardly speaks. But he embodies and lives and becomes his role as few actors you will see this year have done. He goes to a dangerous and disturbing place. River Phoenix might have taken the part, but maybe it's a good thing for him he never did.

Pitt channels the dying spirit of Kurt Cobain as he was, isolated in a big house, avoided by people there and avoiding them and almost everyone who came looking or called. Once he picks up the phone when his producer is calling and he listens, but never speaks. Blake (Pitt's character's name) is a shaky, peripatetic Howard Hughes, who goes native in the first sequence, wandering in a daze, walking into the woods, bathing in a river, spending the night by a bonfire of sticks. The mumbling is eerie, it's eavesdropping without insight for us. As he returns to the house, stumbles about, prepares makeshift meals in the kitchen, puts on a dress and brandishes a shotgun, the lack of human interaction brings home as no dialogue-written scenes ever could how isolated and mad he has become.

Since Last Days is largely a mood piece -- a splendidly original, dreamlike one -- setting is crucial and the old stone house with its crumbling, paint-peeling walls and mess and sound equipment and instruments and paintings, is a major player, so well represented in the elegant, original cinematography of Harris Sayides that it resembles no place else you've ever been. There are three or four other people in the house -- the action's so chaotic and haphazard you may not quite know who or how many. One's clearly "Asia," Asia Argento, and she's sleeping with "Scott," Scott Green, and there's "Luke," Lucas Haas, tall and gangly in Coke-bottle glasses. Blake sneaks up on Asia and Scott with a shotgun when they're in bed together sleeping. Typically, nothing happens. He doesn't shoot, and they don't notice him. They and other people go out to and return from nightly revels. Blake is… just there.

As in Elephant Van Sant's approach is neutral. He does not analyze or explain or judge, and the actors are free to improvise and be themselves. Blake's respected because it's his house, but he's also a kook. Random visitors who're let inside are grotesque and comic: first it's dorky but cute twin Mormon "Elders," then a large well-spoken black man selling a renewal of a Yellow Pages ad from the year before. "How's your day been so far?" he asks as an opener. "Uh….it's another day…." mumbles Blake. He's cooperative in a rote sort of way but there's little indication he knows what he's talking about. There's a detective and a young man who once knew Blake, who escapes them and other people by running outside to the woods again. These two are neither sinister nor funny; they just are, they're just interlopers, like everybody else, into Blake's lost world.

The method in this trilogy has in common that it requires quiet acceptance of the proceedings; that if you give yourself up to its sometimes real time sequences (especially in Gerry, where Van Sant says they're influenced by Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr), they're hypnotic and special, and if you don't, they're just irritating and boring. The experience requires a lot from the viewer. It's hard to describe a movie in which little happens. Nothing turns out to be quite a lot and you might remember that James Joyce wrote a long detailed novel about the events in the life of a little man in a single day in Dublin. It's certainly important that Pitt is deeply in character. If his acting was mannered or theatrical or unfelt, nothing would work. When he finally sings one song, a plangent cry of despair with the refrain, "It's a long lonely journey from death to birth," it's very Cobain, but Pitt's own song and passionate, exciting performance.

There's a kind of climax here, but there's nobody (but us) to witness it. Luke and Scott are up in bed with each other. As in Elephant, several sequences repeat. Blake seems to be dying repeatedly, as Asia stumbles upon him lying on the floor and he seems to nod out, though you never see him do drugs and maybe it's just the after effect of them from long before. Finally he's gone. We don't see him do that either. His soul quietly climbs naked up out of his supine body, like a Duane Michals photo. Then there's all the police, the ambulance, and the other inhabitants sneak off, as Blake did. It's all a pageant. I felt right at home in it remembering Oregon, Washington, the hippie days of the Sixties, the druggy displacement of feeling: it was there for me. I know it was Grunge Rock and Kurt Cobain, to whom this film is dedicated, died in 1994, at 26. The point is that it feels real. But its relation to real events is tangential. And if you give yourself to it and take it in its own context it's a wonderful film, a beautiful funny-sad experience of doomed-damned youth and a deeply felt meditation on isolation and death.




Last Days has an elegantly constructed French official website (http://www.mk2.com/last_days/site.html) for MK2.

This review posted on Chris Knipp website (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=439).

[arsaib4]

Good review. This is the kind of film, much like Elephant, which one could discuss without any hesitation because, more or less, the outcome is already known. I'm looking forward to it. Is Last Days the best American film you've seen this year?

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks. It could be; it's the most artistic and original.

[wpqx]

Already posted at http://p219.ezboard.com/fforeignfilmsfrm19.showMessage?topicID=19.topic

Seem to be in agreement on a lot of things here. As for best American film of the year, I have to go with Sin City, damn that movie was great.

From the opening shot of Gus Van Sant's latest film we are aware of something unique. A singular voice, and one that has really been finding itself lately. We get no traditional opening credits or titles. There is no cast of characters listed until the end, and our first shot of Blake (Michael Pitt) is distant. He is not seen in close up for a long while into the film and when he is, Pitt is covered in a mess of his own hair and dirt that we hardly even recognize him. It is the distancing nature of the story that lends itself to this tactic. We can't see him up close, because no one can. There is no one in the film that understands Blake, and no one who can get close to him, so why should we the viewers?

Blindly entering the film you may not know what's going on for awhile. Van Sant doesn't need to rush to the plot, and background information is very sparse. For the first ten or fifteen minutes it seems more like Last Days is going to be a meditation on nature, and living in the woods. When we see Blake wander by a passing train, and later enter what we find to be his house (a decrepit European style mansion), we realize that this is the civilized world, but in his confusion, Blake would rather wander the woods and nature. He purposely distances himself from everyone in the picture. The few instances where someone attempts to contact him, he remains aloof. His "friends" that are staying with him do very little for him. Asia (Asia Argento) just checks to see whether or not he's dead, and when she feels a pulse, carefully props him back up and closes the door behind her.

His other friends either ask for musical advice, or money. Blake being so detached agrees to give both, but you have the feeling that a moment later he won't remember his promises. We learn that he is a father, but he's so far removed from his own life, that we wonder if he's even aware of it. He is visited by the matriarchal Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth) who may or may not be a mother towards Blake, and she is the one voice of reason there. She attempts to get Blake to come with her to go back to rehab (where the bracelet on his arm indicates he escaped from). She isn't very insistent, and leaves without him.

One thing that Van Sant is careful of is not showing Blake abusing. The most we see from him is the puff of a cigarette, there is no visible drug abuse. So you have to wonder if he's using off camera, or he's just so far gone that it doesn't even matter.

Similarities between Blake and Kurt Cobain are very evident, and judging from the reference to Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, I'm lead to believe that the film takes place in or around 1994 when Cobain died. His hair, and clothes make him look disturbingly like Cobain, and even when he sings, his voice is nearly identical. The resemblences are spooky and Van Sant could have very easily made this film specifically about Cobain (perhaps then it might play in a few more theaters).

Like his previous films, this one is shot rather slowly. Shots are long and there is no rush to get things moving in here. Van Sant also plays with time a little more, showing scenes two times, from different points. I'm not sure what the purpose of this is, but it does however save from crosscutting, and lets us get a closer look at certain moments in the picture.

It should be digested slowly however. The film is a great work, and one of the best American films this year, but it should be allowed to be absorbed. It may take a few hours, or a few days, but the films images will stay with you, for a lot longer than some slicker productions like Batman Begins or War of the Worlds. You'll remember this film, and how it was filmed, and it won't leave you so easily. Highly recommended, but unfortunately it is doing absolutely no business in theaters. I'd hate to see Van Sant resort to his mainstream ways, he's been on such a roll lately, even if no one is seeing his pictures. As long as he keeps the budget low though, I guess he won't lose too much money.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for reprinting your review from Foreign Films here. I don't usually go to that site. Excellent comments and good observations. You brought out a number of details I'd forgotten or not noticed. I would so much like to be able to see this in a theater again. People who say there's nothing to Pitt's performance or that it's self-indulgent, just aren't getting it. It's actually a very fine performance, even though he hardly says anything. But I've said that already.

[oscar jubis]

I like the idea of a film about the last 48 hours (or so) in the life of a Cobain-like rocker. I have loved similarly minimalist movies like Goodbye Dragon Inn, about the last days of a Taipei movie palace. The experience of actually watching Last Days was not rewarding though.

It would seem to me the film has a hollow center meant to be filled with the evocations and associations ellicited by the images. Exalted comments by critics who champion the film definitely give me that impression. They seem to be writing about something ellicited by, but extraneous to the actual movie. I personally wasn't able to conjure up much to think about, or to feel. As suggested above, I waited a few days for Last Days to "sink-in" before posting. Nada. Dennis Lim (Voice) did provide a plausible explanation for the odd inclusion of the Velvet Underground's ode to S&M, "Venus in Furs". That's it. I certainly found no clues for the reason behind the time overlaps Van Sant borrowed from Bela Tarr and used to great effect in the much better Elephant. In Last Days, they come off as purposeless artistic affectation. The film as a whole felt to me like a vacuous indulgence.

[Chris Knipp]

You don't really say enough to make clear the reasons for your displeasure. This is a jotting, a comment on comments, and a reaction shot, rather than a review so you keep yourself safe from specific rebuttal. What factors lead you to claim that there is only a "hollow center"? One could say of almost all classic film, especially before the advent of talkies, that the "center" is "meant to be filled with the evocations and associations ellicited by the images." I thought that was what cinema was all about.

More specifically what one certainly can say is that there is very little dialogue or concrete plot in Last Days and the viewer does have to bring something more to the viewing of that kind of movie from frame one, including a lot of patience. I think it one of the most beautiful and magical films of the year. You might also have mentioned Gerry; stylistically this and Gerry form a trilogy. Gerry requies the most patience, Elephant is the most accessible; this is in between the other two. I'm sure many viewers found Gerry even more vacuous. I didn't.

Last Days is coming up on some other annual Best Lists (besides mine). On the Film Comment poll, "Final Cut 2005," it came in 16th out of the top 20 2005 releases. In the Village Voice annual critics poll, "Take Seven," it did better, coming in tenth out of the 145 or so listed.

A comment by Paul Arthur under the heading "Movies That Mattered" in the magazine remarks that "some of the deepest pleasures of '05 arose from the spectacle of old-time movie magic at its most pure: the movement of light, the articulation of shape and color in the image, the passage of time across deep-focus vistas. Directors such as Van Sant, Wong Kar Wai, Terence Malick, and luminous avant-gardist Robert Beavers -- whose Whitney Museum retrospective was a total knockout -- remind us once again of the sheer visual power of the medium, affirming quaiint mechanical properties on the verge of extinction. NOt the first goodbye to all that and, hopefully, not the last."

[oscar jubis]

*You can call my post whatever you want. I was well-caffeinated for viewing and optimistic_after all, it follows the very-good Elephant. I watched it patiently and fully alert. I had not read reviews but was aware it placed in 25 out of 103 Voice poll voters' Top 10s (a very high percentage). I wanted to, at least, like it. I didn't. I mulled over it and read a few positive reviews looking for clues and inspiration. Nothing. Then I wrote my "jotting", which honestly reflects my experience with the movie.

*You've made your enthusiasm for Gerry quite evident in numerous posts in several threads. I personally didn't get much pleasure or edification out of it.

*While viewing, I was also careful not to associate Blake with the actual Kurt Cobain, even though it's Cobain who "inspired partly" (I think that's how the director phrased it). I was careful not to treat the film as "slice of biopic". What is inarguable is that Van Sant is encouraging Blake-Kurt associations in the viewer, and probably calculated that viewers would fill-in the blank that is the protagonist. Given Van Sant's strategy, it's fair to state that, for me, Blake remains a blank. There's nothing in Pitt that hints at Cobain's magnetism, intensity, passion, and charisma. Pitt's Blake is a pretty boy, preening behind a blond wig, signifying nothing.

[Chris Knipp]

I think and was going to say, but didn't want to presume more than I know about you, that for people who have more of a knowledge of and interest in Kurt Cobain and Nirvana Last Days may be harder to take in and appreciate than it is for someone like me, who have no particular interest in that music and haven't seen or heard but a tiny bit of it. When on the other hand you have to be "careful not to" think of any of what you know about the source characters, that may be hard. I also have to say that this and Mysterious Skin are my two US Ten Best choices that are hardest to watch for the average person, in the case of Mysterious Skin pretty hard and -- and downright painful -- to watch even for me. Both Gerry (especially Gerry) and Last Days require putting oneself into a very special state of mind. Being "well caffeinated" is a giveaway that you used a possibly wrong approach. Nothing would be worse than watching such a movie "well caffeinated." It would drive me mad in that state. When one is "well cafeinated," in my limited experience (I haven't drunk coffee or tea for years), is when you want to watch something with lots of fast violent action. The Bourne Supremacy would work. For Gerry or Last Days you need to be contrastingly blissed- or zoned-out. But maybe you don't mean "well-caffeinated" literally, in which case I don't really know what you mean, but it still doesn't sound like the kind of relaxed, open, blissed-out state this trilogy (especially Gerry and Last Days) calls for in a viewer for optimum absorption and response. I'm not sure what your not likeing Gerry either is supposed to tell me other than that your reaction to Last Days is consistent.


Then I wrote my "jotting", which honestly reflects my experience with the movie. I hope you don't take offiense at my word "jotting." But this statement is redundant. A "jotting," i.e., an immediate statement of reaction, by definition directly reflects one's experience of a movie, so you don't have to say it "honestly reflects" your experience; it would have to. What it doesn't do is erect a structure of analysis, description, ideas that a reader can take hold of and say, "Ah-ha....so that's why he sees it that way." It only allows one to say, "So...he sees it that way." Which is almost to say "so what?" Because for discussion, one must have more observation and argument. But I wouldn't object to your not liking it. I am as true to my gut reactions on reviewing movies as you ever are, I think it's fair to say, and I don't usually even go in "wanting to like" something, though I may understandably go in expecting to like it. But I guess I sometimes do. I always go in hoping it'll seem good--or hoping it'll be bad enough to be funny, as my friend Jessica often does. (You can skip this part which is about other movies.) Like, I went in hoping Terrence Malick's The New World would be good, and in some ways it certainly of course was -- the marvellous (65-mm.!) cinematography, the fascinating mise-en-scène, the sometimes very convincing-looking costumes -- but the basic relationships especially between Smith and Pocahontas seemed sappy and I really got more than tired of looking at Colin Farrell's moony eyes up close as the minutes dragged on. Equally I went in wanting Syriana to be great even though I'd gotten wind that it had flaws. In both cases I would have to "shortlist" these because I like what they are trying to do even if they don't quite succeed. I wonder if you would go in that direction for Last Days or if you're really more interested in cutting it out of the running, because you think it's just pretentious. That can very well happen with the whole trilogy, I think, and I understand. I happen to be in the other camp.

[Chris Knipp]

What is inarguable is that Van Sant is encouraging Blake-Kurt associations in the viewer, and probably calculated that viewers would fill-in the blank that is the protagonist. Given Van Sant's strategy, it's fair to state that, for me, Blake remains a blank. There's nothing in Pitt that hints at Cobain's magnetism, intensity, passion, and charisma. Pitt's Blake is a pretty boy, preening behind a blond wig, signifying nothing.
This is interesting and here you really do present some concrete argument for me to chew on. No, though, this claim of yours -- apart from going against what the director says -- isn't "inarguable" at all: I don't think that Van Sant is expecting me to fill in Kurt Cobain and as I said it seems to work just the opposite way, that if I was thinking a lot about Kurt Cobain and knew a lot about him, the movie would be more jarring, and in your case, infuriating. I think the "blank" is the way Van Sant is seeing the "last days" of this fading, dying rock star. He has become a blank. That is because of drugs and depression. There's not much "there" there any more. But it's no easier to act a blank than it is to think of nothing (elephant in the room, yeah?), and so Michael Pitt's "pretty boy" performance is really a lot harder and better than you think it is, in my view. As I said in my review, Pitt is deeply into this role, and it's not a role that's particularly easy to get into, because this is not a nice or happy place to be.
There's nothing in Pitt that hints at Cobain's magnetism, intensity, passion, and charisma. There you go doing just what you promised you were going to be "careful not to" do: you're comparing the character with Kurt Cobain, and finding him wanting. But did you know Cobain in his last days, by the way? No. Nobody did. He wasn't there. So even by this standard, fairly applied, the movie doesn't necessarily disintegrate as fast as you'd like it to. But far from an invisible-narrator documentary kind of movie, Last Days (like its companiion pieces in the trilogy I've been harping on) is a very style-central piece of cinema that's deeply filtered through the vision of Gus Van Sant. If we should think of anybody when we watch it -- which we really shouldn't; we should give ourselves to the experience it offers -- we should think of Gus Van Sant, not Kurt Cobain. Cobain is just a starting point, an inspiration. And that's kind of obvious, I would have thought, despite Van Sant's various sly references to Cobain.

[wpqx]

Having an interest in Nirvana I found Pitt to be hauntingly similar to Cobain at parts. The film did sink in for me. I was expecting a miraculous film, but while watching it I wasn't overwhelmed. It was over the next few days that it really started to settle. Perhaps you needed more than just an hour or two. I'll admit this isn't as easy to appreciate as Elephant, or quite as timely, but it is well worth the work. I just fear that the failure of this film commercially will make the possibility of Van Sant making worthwhile films slim.

[Chris Knipp]

Glad you felt that. Yes I think the special mood of Last Days stays with you and sinks in. If you let it, of course. I hope that's not true about Van Sant, but I think he is working with a small budget and he has supporters, but maybe hel'll do a potboiler next time to make money, who knows? For me, this trilogy was a really fine run he had. It puts him on my good list for sure for the first time since My Own Private Idaho.

[oscar jubis]

If I treat Blake as some generic rock star I find him lacking in interest. If I treat him like a version of Cobain during his final days, I find him utterly unconvincing. I wasn't "interested" in Nirvana, I was a fan from before "Nevermind" (thanks to college radio). I didn't quite find the film infuriating, I found it simply "lacking". I liked Elephant and My Own Private Idaho a lot, by the way, and To Die For was good fun.