Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015)

Sick Product of a Sick System

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This movie suffers from misleading advertising. This is NOT the definitive documentary. If you were looking for a story about Nirvana, the songs or the rock stardom then you will be heavily disappointed. I think this is a story about Family, Parenthood and Addiction. The tragedy of 2 generations in the same family that were cursed with dysfunctional relationships, selfishness, irresponsibility, self-destructiveness and of course addiction. Kurt was abandoned as a child, and he was tossed around between his parents and other family members, because as they themselves put it in blaming each other "couldn't handle him". And then there is Courtney and Kurt the married couple, the parents, the addicts, and the damage they could have inflicted on their baby. I used to think that Cobain killed himself because of what was happening with the music, and the stardom that he never desired, but after seeing this movie, I am more inclined to think that he was torn between his love for his child, his yearning for building a family that didn't resemble the one he had as a child, and his inability to raise her, mainly due to his addiction -some of the footage was immensely disturbing- I don't think he could bear the idea of the inevitable future of her being taken away from him. But then again, if this was true, he chose to give up and abandon her all together. This a beautifully made film, tries to go inside Kurt's mind and relive the events in his life that led to his tragic death. It is also the saddest movie I have ever scene.

Never has there been a more pure, raw, gripping and grotesque documentary as Brett Morgen's Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. A stirring look into the self destructive life of one of rock and grunge's biggest icons. Interviews from Courtney Love, Kurt's Parents and Siblings, Bass Player Krist Novoselic is seen while archive footage, old comics and drawings, intense imagery flashes onto the screen shocking and giving viewers a hard boiled look into the life of this great rock star.Morgen's visual style is seen from using new footage he directed which follows animated sequences and live action film are amazing. The movie also uses footage of inside the human body, gory comics, disturbing drawings such as Snoopy as a Nazi to show the troubled times that Cobain is going through in a most passionate way. Morgen cares about every single detail and doesn't leave anything out and although it can be tiring at times with it's long 2 hour and 25 minute running time, the film never runs out of steam and is as raw as a music documentary can get. No more History of the Eagles or the four hour epic masterpiece Running Down a Dream, this movie is life like. It breathes, it reproduces, it is crazy.Montage of Heck is one of my favorite movies of 2015, and this movie surely will be nominated for an Oscar. 95/100 A

Just the mere fact, that Cobain (and others) have filmed a lot of stuff (which is used without further comment and is there for the viewer to evaluate and examine and draw conclusions from), which is used in this documentary, make it really essential. Especially if you were a fan. But even if you weren't or just want to find out who this Cobain was, this is the place to start and find out.It's as conclusive as it gets. I don't think you can get more or better inside ones head, than it's shown here. There's of course foul language and themes that might not be suitable for children. But if you get intimate with a person (I shouldn't forget about the nudity on display here too), you're bound to see and hear things, that some might judge as unsafe for kids to watch.Very thorough, with many interviews and a lot of private time with a man, who seemed to feel doomed ...

Let me say it beforehand that I've never watched a Kurt/Nirvana documentary before this nor read any of the books about him and I'm not a Kurt obsessive, although I've admittedly read up on his death and admire Nirvana's music and their contribution to 90s pop culture (which I am a fan of).This documentary is a surprisingly humanizing look at him, with pretty much zero focus on the circumstances of his death (only a two-second note about it appears on the screen right before the credits roll) - which was quite refreshing since there seems to be a macabre obsession about Kurt's death, almost to the point of overshadowing what he was like as a person. And that's precisely what this documentary does - bring him from this deified rock legend pedestal to the level of a man, what he was like as a son, as a father, as a brother, as a husband and ex-boyfriend.The interviews with his father, sister (it's the first time his immediate family has agreed to one), ex-girlfriend Tracy Marander and his mom Wendy in particular - along with more familiar faces like ex- wife Courtney Love and bandmate Krist Novoselic - are touching, at times uncomfortable and revealing. They map out a sensitive and talented but vulnerable artist who was a little too conscious of himself.Although there's also performance footage here, Nirvana's music is almost a minor footnote and the focus strictly remains on the man himself. The stylized animations of Kurt's journal entries, drawings and narrations of his teenage years fill in the rest of the details about his youth, although the most effective parts are conveyed by various home videos at different points in his life - including some very intimate and unnerving ones that depict his domestic life with Courtney Love and their daughter Frances.In a memorable scene, Courtney is giving baby Frances her first haircut as a visibly impaired Kurt nods off on heroin while holding the baby. It's a baring, unfiltered look – their messy house and unwashed appearance depicts a chaotic domestic life that's far from idyllic. It also shows that despite the rumours, Kurt and Courtney were very much in love and somehow made naturally suitable partners (despite, or because of, their drug habits). Morgen makes the brave decision of letting Cobain come across as a flawed character rather than a romanticized tragic anti-hero, without denigrating him or making him seem unsympathetic.I was also quite surprised by how meticulously documented virtually all his life (even pre-fame) seemingly was - by his family members' home videos since he was a little child to the way he meticulously preserved his possessions, feelings and thoughts (artistic, mundane to-do lists or otherwise) in his journals and the 'treasure trove' of boxes upon boxes of tapes (among other belongings) that director Brett Morgen used to fill in the details of what went on in his mind. Of course, not to mention the baring, rather unflattering home videos of his personal life with Courtney and his daughter. It's as if he was anticipating the opportunity for legend-status fame and preserved his life for it just in case.This documentary is a humbled, humanized view that goes into the deep end of what made Kurt the person he was, rather than the ideal that he was made out to be. It also provides a fairly unfiltered, at times disturbing window in the mind and life of the 90s' quintessential rock star and so-called voice of a generation - without any baggage of the romanticizing fandom that surrounds his tragic death.