As the opening footage of a sickly Kurt takes the stage you can’t help but feel for the singer. Did we do this to him? Was our obsessive fandom too much for the musician to bear?
The documentary rolls on and these feelings don’t subside. While it’s not something you’d want to feel on any normal day, getting an insight like this into Kurt Cobain’s life is hardly ordinary. Cobain: Montage of Heck flicks through old footage, interviews with family and friends (Courtney Love, Don Cobain and Kim Cobain are highlights), Kurt’s diary entries and scribbles animated and a retelling of incidents in his life through cartoons. There’s even the reworking of the Nirvana classics to play in the background as you watch of Kurt’s difficult teen years – there’s clearly not one element of this documentary that’s been overlooked.
If there’s one thing to pick on it’s that some of these many elements don’t flow on seamlessly from the other, though if it’s a reflection of Kurt’s life, there really wasn’t anything smooth about it.
From his older years, his sketches of bodily organs, demons and mutilation are brutally juxtaposed against the home footage of him as a blonde haired blue eyed toddler. How did such a sweet kind meet the fate that he did? It’s something that I feel will never be answered, and while this documentary gives the best glimpse of an answer yet, we can’t know for certain unless talking with the man himself.
For fans of Nirvana this is likely to leave you with mixed emotions. You’ll feel joy at the chance to reminisce of the good days – to feel as if you were part of the action. But there’s so much sadness in what could have been; his life with Courtney, or with his child, or just generally with Nirvana. Regardless of your emotions in watching the release, this is one to watch if not just to see what those around him had to say of his life.
Director/Writer: Brett Morgen
Reviewed by Amanda Sherring