KURT COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK Is an Emotional, Intimate Documentary - Sundance 2015 Review

I was such a huge fan of Nirvana when I was in high school. I listened to their albums Nevermind and In Utero over and over again. I even have all of their songs memorized. Back in the day I even wore the holey jeans and sported the white t-shirt and a flannel button up shirt. I was a '90s alternative rock kid who loved reading comic books, watching movies, playing video games, and listening to music.

I remember the day when I found out Kurt Cobain commuted suicide like it was yesterday. I couldn't believe it, and I was devastated. I freakin' loved his music so much. It was stuff that I just really connected with. Even as I write this review I'm listening to their album MTV Unplugged In New York, which is still incredible.

I had no idea what was going on in Cobain's personal life at the time, and I didn't care. I just thought he was an incredible artist and musician. It was kind of strange and surreal that all of these years later thanks to this documentary called Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, I finally get some insight into the life of a man whose music I loved.  

It has been almost been 21 years since Cobain died, and now after watching this documentary I've learned more about him than I wanted to. The movie presents Cobain's life story in his own words, which come from his diary entries, audiotapes, home movies, and art, and of course, there are interviews with his mom, dad, sister, Courtney Love, and bandmate and friend Krist Novoselic.

It's really a deep and dark intimate look into the life of this artist. I could tell through his music that he must have been a pretty messed up individual, but until now I had no idea how messed up he really was. It was really scary and sad seeing how bad he got. Through his journal entries and audiotapes you really get a sense that this guy was on a trajectory that didn't have a happy ending. It's guess it's not entirely his fault, though.

The movie starts off with home movies of him as a happy little kid, but as soon as Ritalin came into the picture, things took a turn for the worse. His parents eventually separated, and he was so much to handle that neither one of them wanted to take him in, so he ended up in the wrong places with the wrong people. He tells a story of when he was young how he sat on some railroad tracks waiting for the train to run him over, but he was on the wrong set of tracks and the train missed him. That gave him the motivation to keep going. Music became his outlet, and damn, he was great at it! But his introduction to heroin was the beginning of the end. It was really sad watching Cobain strung out of his mind holding his little girl while she got her hair cut. The music eventually took a backseat to heroin, and at one point his aspiration in life was to just be a junkie. 

Seeing the devolution of this man who was evolving musically and finding success at the same time was hard to watch, especially when it was someone I somewhat idolized when I was a teenager. One of the more tender moments in the film, though, was Cobain, at 25, shortly before his death in the bathroom with his spouse. Love is bathing their daughter, and she says, "I feel kind of happy right now." Cobain happily agrees with her, and it shows a spark of life and hope. 

This is truly a powerful film that that will bring out some intense emotions of any fan of Cobain's music. It is packed full of strongly profound material that will make you look at how you are living your own life. Like many of you, when Cobain died on April 8th, 1994, I grieved for an icon. But with this film, people can now grieve for a son, a father, a husband, and a man.

The doc was directed by Brett Morgen, and here's the synopsis:

Experience Kurt Cobain like never before in the first fully authorized portrait of the famed rock music icon. Director Brett Morgen expertly blends Cobain's personal archive of art, music, and never-before-seen home movies with animation and revelatory interviews with his family and closest confidants. Following Kurt from his earliest years in Aberdeen, Washington, through the height of his fame, a visceral and detailed cinematic insight of an artist at odds with his surroundings emerges.
While Cobain craved the spotlight even as he rejected the trappings of fame, his epic arc depicts a man who stayed true to his earliest punk rock convictions, always identifying with the "outsider" and ensuring the music came first.
Fans and those of the Nirvana generation will learn things about Cobain they never knew while those who have recently discovered the man and his music will know what makes him the lasting icon that he is.
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