Last Days

Sunday June 12, 6:30pm Neptune Theater

A long lingering reflection of a sad and unpleasant memory was my first impression as the credits rolled on Last Days. There is beauty in the composition but also decay and ugliness in the content. Drawn out vacuous takes extend into tedium that must be intended as contemplation, but Gus is no Tarkovsky. There is a breath of life here and there. Blake’s last gasp of inspiration, alone with his music and viewed from the outside with an unflinching stillness as solid as the stones of the house is both mournful and heroic. A far bigger problem is divorcing fact from fiction and the confusing intent of the film itself. Even a made up revisionist biography would be better served reveling in the assent and glory rather than the miserable decline. A film that chronicled the birth of the scene, The Vogue and Sub Pop would be a wonder. Beautiful or not, Last Days is the morose and morbid vision of a dying junkie. I’d sooner recommend Broomfield’s documentary than this indulgence. The two minutes of Keaton’s The General I saw at the party was more entertaining.