well, i was really disappointed with this. after being absolutely blown away by gus van sant's last film, elephant, i was so looking forward to this too. and since elephant, in some ways, covered similar ground (it was an imagining of a columbine-like school shooting incident, this is an imagining of kurt's last days), i thought there was a lot of hope for it.
alas, it's really, in the end, just kinda dull. harris sayides' cinematography is quite beautiful at times, and very melancholy, but where in elephant it felt as if the lingering shots and heavy pacing had a lot to say about the monotony of school life, here they just labour the point that kurt is sad, wistful, perhaps already dead. there's a point, but we got it five minutes in, you know? pitt does a pretty good kurt, but he's not identical, and that sort of frustrated me. of course it's going to be impossible to find someone really identical most of the time, but perhaps more could have been done with make-up (i'm thinking charlize theron's transformation in monster).
in all, there were some nice moments where you felt as if things were probably spot on - even if van sant didn't guess the events of kurt's final days wandering the earth, he certainly seems to have pinpointed the atmosphere and feelings that i imagine would have been there - but the film just didn't have enough drama to hold up. now i'm glad that van sant didn't feel it necessary to over-dramatise (ie. make up) anything (although what was with him talking to himself? it seemed a little art school to me...), but perhaps if the story was just too dull to hold our interest, it was too dull to be made?
nice idea, failed experiment, i guess.
it's funny though; reading through some of the other comments here on IMDb, maybe i should reevaluate this. pitt's performance was perfectly muted, defined more by his lack of life than anything he actually showed. the stark human interactions were exactly how you might imagine things to have been, and - as a 'mood film,' as one reviewer calls it - the film works well enough. perhaps then, it's good, and it's merely my own failings that meant my interest wasn't held. anyway, i respect van sant - while he might make unusual films, he never leaves you without anything to think about.
edit: months later, and i now adore this film - go figure. i guess it just took a while to settle in my mind, but i've come to respect the subtlety with which van sant filmed it, and i'm totally in love with the manner in which we meander through the days just as kurt did himself.
alas, it's really, in the end, just kinda dull. harris sayides' cinematography is quite beautiful at times, and very melancholy, but where in elephant it felt as if the lingering shots and heavy pacing had a lot to say about the monotony of school life, here they just labour the point that kurt is sad, wistful, perhaps already dead. there's a point, but we got it five minutes in, you know? pitt does a pretty good kurt, but he's not identical, and that sort of frustrated me. of course it's going to be impossible to find someone really identical most of the time, but perhaps more could have been done with make-up (i'm thinking charlize theron's transformation in monster).
in all, there were some nice moments where you felt as if things were probably spot on - even if van sant didn't guess the events of kurt's final days wandering the earth, he certainly seems to have pinpointed the atmosphere and feelings that i imagine would have been there - but the film just didn't have enough drama to hold up. now i'm glad that van sant didn't feel it necessary to over-dramatise (ie. make up) anything (although what was with him talking to himself? it seemed a little art school to me...), but perhaps if the story was just too dull to hold our interest, it was too dull to be made?
nice idea, failed experiment, i guess.
it's funny though; reading through some of the other comments here on IMDb, maybe i should reevaluate this. pitt's performance was perfectly muted, defined more by his lack of life than anything he actually showed. the stark human interactions were exactly how you might imagine things to have been, and - as a 'mood film,' as one reviewer calls it - the film works well enough. perhaps then, it's good, and it's merely my own failings that meant my interest wasn't held. anyway, i respect van sant - while he might make unusual films, he never leaves you without anything to think about.
edit: months later, and i now adore this film - go figure. i guess it just took a while to settle in my mind, but i've come to respect the subtlety with which van sant filmed it, and i'm totally in love with the manner in which we meander through the days just as kurt did himself.