Other visitors to the house include two boys from the Church of Latter Day Saints in their neatly starched short-sleeved shirts and plastic name tags and fresh-scrubbed faces. These two are also invited in, but by others living in the house who carry on a long conversation with them and seem reluctant to let them go. And what contrast these two apple-cheeked boys, all Ivory Snow, are in contrast to the filthy interior of not only the house, but of the minds, which indeed, seem more and more sordid, of some of the other band members.
No, not Blake. Blake does not seem sordid. Blake remains an innocent – just lost, like a child, likely in a manic state, depressed clearly (hypomanic, not hypermanic), and probably shooting up, which explains his most-of-the-time almost catatonic state. What is interesting about the scene is the contrast between the innocence and almost sparkly cleanliness of boys and the dim and dingy house, the contrast between which I am sure is no accident. Moreover, the band members, unlike most people, seem oddly reluctant to let the two church boys go, which seems to sorta freak out the boys, and if they are freaked out… well, enough said.
It’s interesting that throughout the film there is, if you listen, the sound of church bells ringing – a full peal – ever so quietly in the beginning as Blake sits outside of his house, but each time a bit louder, such that by the end, before he enters the shed for the very last time, you hear the church bells full-on. This is when you hear the bell and realize for whom it tolls. It’s done well, and it’s subtle and you have to really be paying attention, but it’s there. Bells have always served as “a calling” – usually a calling to worship, but to Blake, obviously, a different kind of calling and a way out of what is not a good situation for him. Obviously, here there is deep sorrow and, perhaps for the first time in the film, we really see a close-up of Blake’s blue pool-like eyes, which, in fact, do seem filled with sorrow.
We know how this is going to end. We know because we were there when Cobain died. We remember it all too well.
Article comments
1 - anabelll
i like your article. it feels like i've watched the movie through it.
2 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
hi Anabel,
I hope that's a good thing... thanks for the read and commenting... It's a good film. If you liked Nirvana and followed the Cobain story at all and know a fair amount, then I'd recommend it. Sad, but pretty well done, i thought.
Thanks -
Sadi R-P
3 - John Daly
The film (Last Days), was the worst film I ever saw in my life. Focusing on 3 days of depression doesn't show how the person gets there. How can a person relate? You can't understand a lot of what people say in this film. You don't understand how he got to that point. I think the mood was right, but a person can't relate to it if he doesn't see the contrast of what lead up to that point. No, I can't beleive this film ever got off the ground. I think I could do better!
4 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
hi John:
having been there myself (depression, dark - very)i know where you are coming from. There isn't enough build up here to really show or demonstrate how he got into the state he is in. Also, my brother was chronically depressed and also shot himself (a suicide) so I know what you mean - the thing is, I think it's so hard to define, as van Sant calls it, "Last Days."
I suppose in a way, at least for my brother, and like i said, i've been there, those last days are sort of like living through tissue paper guaze in which the world hardly reaches you - for me anyway, i just felt numb, as if I had been injected mind and soul with novacaine. My brother, for his part, acted almost 'too normal'. He even said 'goodbye' to everyone (happily so) and told us he was going on a 'trip" like a vacation, and that he wouldn't see us for a while.
Nobody even questioned it because it was the sort of thing he would do. He hid his depression all too well. I think many of us do. I know that I am a master at hiding it from my family because I don't want to burden them, so i keep my depression held in a tight ball in a handkerchief in my fist. It's hard.
As i said, you would never have know with my brother. I know, always, he was depressive like me, but at that time, did I know he would do what he did? No. I would have stopped him if I could have - but the point is, i know this, that he didn't want to be stopped. IT wasn't a cry for help - he wanted to succeed. To ask for help mean to be saved and he didn't want that. HE wanted to get it done, and he planned methodically. I understand this. A cry for help is a beast of a totally different nature. An actual attempt is a beast all its own - do you agree?
It's hard to say that the last three days are anything... who knows, right? I can't say what Cobain went thru anymore than what my brother went thru. I can only point to my own situations and say what I have been through.
In saying that, I did find some of Van Sant's depictions accurate. The not really making sense things - the attempt to connect with just anything as when the Cobain character goes off into the woods (this i read as some attempt to just re-connect, tho i could be wrong).
After, the sense of just giving up - of walking like the zombified dead. For him, no doubt, a good part of this was drugs i think (but i'm not positive but that's what i've heard). Not so with me - but i was certainly zombified by grief. Like the living dead, i was a hungry ghost, just wandering the house, never leaving, hardly speaking to anyone. I didn't connect and could not connect at all. I think Van Sant captured at least that.
I do get where you are coming from and as a depressive as well you have my understanding and always empathy; it's hard for someone on the outside to know what really goes on inside your or my head. I think you and I could perhaps relate more (or perhaps not) tho i have a feeling we could. Maybe Van Sant's failing in this sense was that he has never really been there himself... in this way, he can be good, but just not the right person to really capture the dark mood or Cobain during the last days of his life...
make sense?
i hope you write back -i think we have a fair amount to say and i'd value your take.
be well,
sadi r-p
5 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Oh, John, your comment somehow was posted twice... I noticed your first sentence "it was the worst film I had ever seen in my life." Really? God, i can think of a thousand worse films. The reason it may have struck as bad, or not accurate in many ways is that it may have, as it did for me in some ways, cut closer to the bone so to speak - do you think that is why?
I've written a lot on depression. I have temporal lobe epilepsy which comes with depression and a high rate of (sadly, successful) suicides. I do know where you're coming from, I think... I'd like to hear more.
Cheers,
s.
6 - anyone who's seen this movie
I want an hour and a half of my life back!!! This movie moved me so much I had to write. And by moved me I mean moved me to serve my duty as a human being to tell everyone how phucking god awful horrible this movie is. Wait, can you really even call it a movie? An hour and a half of my dog sleeping and farting from time to time has a tremendous amount more substance then this piece of shit! I hope the maker of this film takes a hint from kurt and does away with himself proper.
7 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
#6
I get what you're saying - listen, nobody can get into Cobain's mind, or anyone's mind. I reviewed because it was sent to me to review so i did my my duty.
Your comment is well taken but the end part is harsh and you must mean it that way. I'm sorry you feel that way: suicide is never a good way. Listen, you might just attack me for even this which would be a wretched thing to do so i hope you would not -
my own brother committed suicide - they anniversay of which is January 26th, so coming up soon, and a hard time. Was it a big wuss-out? Yes. Was it cowardly in som ways? Yes, i think it was. Do i blame him after all we went through and bearing up to that? Not one bit. IT's hard to bear. As i always said, He stole my trick - bastard.
That said, it just is't the way.
Look: this may sound cold, but i don't care anymore. If someone wants to take their own lie, they will. They will NOT sit around talking about it and whining about it and if they do, my response is, "don't waste my time; just go do it, because i can't be bothered anymore." I say this because if they really wanted to, like my brother, they would not tell a soul (as he did not), they would quietly patrol the hallway of their methods, go about it and boom, one day they are dead with no advance warning. NO cry for help. That is suicide. The rest is a cry for help and that's good - damn, give that person help, but the best help you can give them is to say that you will not listen to this suicide talk anymore because it is simply not a valid option.
My brother did it. He sucks. I love him, but he sucks. It was not a valid option for him, and therefore, it is not a valid option for me - and by the way, that was what he always told me so when I say this theory, know that it does not come entirely from me. It comes for th most part from him.
As for Van Sant - nobody can do a suicide justice. There is no justice. There is no end to the grief. There is no closure. There is no true comprehension and there is no moving on. That day will be remembred every year for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, suicides have a strange way of living, ironically, forever.
Van Sant missed a lot of these subtlties but then, maybe he didn't set out to make them? I don't know...
But your point is very well taken. I hope you give mine some thought as well and understand and take it in the spirit in which it is intended, which is good and intended to help, not hurt. I have been, am thre, wil always be. This makes me no expert, but it does help provide some insight.
Be well,
s.r.p.
8 - Frank
Worst movie ever!!!
9 - nevermind
whats the name of kurts song in the movie? that he is playing and singing?
10 - Kt
This was a quintessential Gus Van Sant movie and,as with all his films, you either get them or you don't. He has a particular vision in filmmaking reliant highly on music, lighting, landscape, and the movements and characterizations of his actors to carry of his overriding message rather than spelling his thesis out in script and special effect. In this case his style most effective. Silence in a Gus Van Sant movie is almost more important than whatever words might be said. It's poignancy echoes.