Brilliant. Better than Elephant. A poetic mediation on celebrity, consumerism, nature, industry, purity, creativity, loneliness, youth, beautiful boys, disaffection, Mormons and death by misadventure. And Ricky Jay is in it. And so is Kim Gordon. There is no narrative, so to speak, and what little there is circles in and around itself. The soundscapes, as in Elephant, are multi-layered and complexly expressionistic. The cinematography is less showy than in Elephant, but I’d watch anything Harris Savides shoots (for a couple of minutes he simply shoots a television playing a Boys to Men video and its riveting). Worth the drive and much better than watching a bunch of people kick the ass out of a larger bunch of people (no matter how much style may be on display) for an hour and a half.
This brief essay articulates what I wanted to say with much greater clarity.
just saw this again now that it is out on DVD. Still wonderful. I may even get the soundtrack, though having a track written and performed by Lukas Haas is weird. I’m really glad Jeff picked this as his best US film of the year over ‘Crash.’
I’ve been assessing my list of possible best-of-the-year films and you will be happy to note that Crash doesn’t even appear in my top seven. That’s conformity boys! Chris I’m glad you liked Last Days. I bought the DVD the other day but haven’t gotten around to giving it a second viewing (have a show of my own opening tonight; wish me a few broken legs). Still, I am excited about revisiting it. Have you seen Palindromes yet? No one responded to my posting a few weeks back but that film has really stuck in my head and I’m curious what others have to say. Also watched Mysterious Skin for the second time this week and, while the subject matter is tough going, I think it to be a really fine piece of filmmaking. It’s not perfect but there is a Genet-worthy lyricism about this film. I found it troubling, complex, mature and very moving. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance in the central role is quite remarkable. This may be one of the strongest performances of the year (speaking of, has any one seen the fun trailer for the Sundance fav Brick?).
‘Palindromes’ is third on my Netflix list, right after ‘Porco Rosso’ and ‘They Came Back.’ I just ran through all four discs of ‘Firefly’ in a little over a week, so I’m afraid I will fall afoul of Arnab’s “frequent user” experience with Netflix.