Review of Last Days (2005) by Graham J — 24 Oct 2011

We often see tales of rock stars portrayed in films. The glamor leadingto decadence which leads to their eventual death. They seem to die in a blaze of glory. Among operatic feelings, or crazed crowds, or in ecstacy from drugs and partying. Here is the flipside. A life that ends with a whimper.

Last Days is a fictional imagining, based on the last days of Kurt Cobain. Sort of in the same vein as Fur. The film mirrors it's subject, a quiet, empty void, aimlessly wandering to a predetermined destination; death.

It is my belief that people fall into drug addiction for two primary reasons. Either they enjoy the high and the fun. It is a release. The other half seek the opposite. It is about numbing, or distancing. Trying to essentially destroy yourself, and the drugs are the only way to shut that voice in your head the fuck up. Jim Morrisson and Kirt Cobain were that type. I would be That type if I did drugs.

Blake, as the film calls him, is at the final stage of that type of addicts life. He has all but succeeded in the conquest of self destruction. He is an empty husk that dispassionately shuffles through life. His physical body has just yet to get the memo that life is already over.

We almost never see his face. Always hidden by hair, a hood, or glasses. He also has no dialogue. He stares blankly at those who try to communicate. And mumbles to himself. Michael Pitt doesn't so much create a character as he does a disposition. This detachment supersedes any character trait.

When he finally dies we see his friends leave quickly, as to not be implicated. They think of saving themselves. I often hear suicide called selfish. But for a man like Blake, self preservation is only possible through annihilation of self. And as his spirit rises from his body, and climbs away, we know he has succeeded in the most important thing; finally escaping yourself.