Gus Van Sant's Last Days

Kurt Cobain escaped from a rehab facility and disappeared for a month. He was found dead from a shotgun to his head in the green house of his stone walled mansion in the middle of the forest.
Gus Van Sant show us the Last Days of Blake, a Seattle rocker who's apparently escaped from a drug facility, and is now spending the days of his life in his stone walled mansion in the woods. Blake is not Kurt Cobain, and it is him at the same time.

Blake is a young man who spends his time, be it day or night, silently, contemplating nature, thinking, but at the same time he's walking aimlessly, mumbling every word, avoiding the few people that are around him, supposed friends that only want him because of what he has. What he has we don't know though, or we do, because we know who Kurt Cobain was. And if you don't know who he was then this is not a movie for you.

Michael Pitt plays Blake, and he channels Kurt perfectly. From the dirty blonde hair to the trademark voice that accompanied the grunge sound of Nirvana. The look is incredible and it's great because we don't get a close up to Blake's face up until the final scenes of the movie. Before that we always get his face covered by hair of filmed from an angle that doesn't let us see it.
And there's something worth noting that could decide if you go see this movie or not: as I mentioned Blake mumbles a lot in the movie, and it's not just a lot, is all of it. There are no fully understandable sentences coming out of his mouth during the entire movie.

There are two classic scenes featuring Nirvana's sound (not music though, there's none of that in the movie). First there's a scene in which Blake plays instruments, guitar, bass and drums, no lyrics though. Van Sant shows us this scene from outside the house through a big window, and you can just see Blake's mind functioning, creating music.
The second scene is excellent, in which one of the guys that's staying in Blake's house comes to him for help on a song. He talks to Blake, and even gives him a tape, but Blake just nods and watches, he's lethargic and has no energy it seems. The guy leaves, and Blake grabs a guitar and starts playing and singing. Pitt's (or whoever it was, though he plays in a band in real life so it could've been him) voice sounds just like Kurt's, and the music is the perfect underground grunge sound of Nirvana.

This is not a traditional movie, it doesn't follow any of the classic steps. It's literally a following of what happened to this rocker, and to Kurt (Van Sant even uses MTV's original broadcast of the news of Kurt's death) in his Last Days, filled with nothingness, probably just thinking who he is and what he means, though maybe not. And just like with Kurt, there's no explanation or reasons of his death, just Blake's last words put on paper: "I can't keep going. I can't be part of this machine. I'm sorry.". This is not the movie I was expecting to see about Kurt, it's better, and I salute Van Sant for his beautiful work with it.