Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Synopsis: An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana." In the film, Kurt Cobain... [More]
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
As an illustrated audio tour through the life of a gifted but self-destructive performer, 'About a Son' is enlightening to a point, but one has to wonder when filmmakers will stop exhuming the corpse of a man who desperately craved privacy.
Shaped from Cobain's own words, the film tells his story with care, in inventive style and without phony reverence or pretentious pronouncements.
Most of the material has never been made public before, so the movie is a must-see for Cobain fans. Even for non-fans, it is quite an astonishing document. Up to a point.
Only loosely connected to the story, the visuals quickly grow monotonous.
Allows the fans that the legendary musician will keep gathering for decades to come a brief look inside Cobain's troubled mind, and it does so in a refreshingly bold and innovative way.
There is much to fault in this tedious exercise in pseudo-hipster cool masquerading as, well, what exactly?
Startlingly de-mythologizing at first, then just plain poignant . . . it's fascinating to reconcile Cobain's slacker howl over chipping guitar chords with a sodden Pacific Northwest of logging trucks and fishing boats.
The ending section, where Schnack and Azerrad let Cobain ramble philosophically about life and music, is a muddled intellectual mess.
Many of the images aren't particularly compelling and neither, frankly, are Cobain's comments, which range from dull anti-press diatribes to familiar stories about the musical influence of his Aunt Mary to inarticulate blather.
It's easy to get lost in his words, especially if you're a fan. I ended up enjoying the film overall, even if I had to wonder whether Cobain himself would have approved of a film like this.
Cobain narrates the tale of his all-too-short life, musing on his successes, loves, letdowns, motivations and depression.
Kurt Cobain About a Son is a lovely piece of filmmaking, a gripping, minimalist marriage of sound and image.
The unique style of the film makes it a music and art house fan's must and, if you are a fan of Kurt Cobain, yours too.
...essential viewing for any real fan of the man and his music and an artfully unique take on the musical biographical documentary genre.
As important for what it reveals about a seminal and grievously misunderstood artist as for how it rejuvenates a moribund documentary form.
Less a movie than an illustrated audiotape, Kurt Cobain: About a Son is nonetheless fascinating for what it reveals of its subject,
This isn't so much a movie documentary as it is an audio book with visuals.
Personally, I would have preferred to just listen to a CD of Azerrad's engrossing interview in my car -- then pop in a Nirvana album for the rest of the drive home. Smells like a fine idea to me.
About A Son may not let in anybody who doesn't already have one foot in Nirvana's doorway, but those people are invited in fully, to experience the contradictions and preoccupations of a man whose music defined his era.
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