He came as he was, but left too soon. (Photo: Shout Factory)

[by Zan Laorenza]

This sprawling documentary plotting the life of Nirvana's late front man comes courtesy of Shout! Factory, who brought viewers the intimate, iconic Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks. But it diverges from the typical music documentary format, presenting no interview footage in lieu of previously unreleased audio interviews between Cobain and Michael Azerrad, author of the pre-mortem biography Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana (1993). Assembled in a chronological fashion by director AJ Schnack, the clips construct an acutely personal narrative relayed over images and videos depicting everyday life in the state of Washington, Cobain's home.

The film begins with a brooding instrumental of delay-laden guitars, backdropping aerial footage of rural and urban Washington. The original score was written by Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie fame, and evokes a scene in the Cobain-esque film Last Days , where the main character concocts a haunting, delay-driven melody in the desperate isolation of his suburban home. Emerging from the soundtrack is Cobain's voice, explaining how, as a child, he felt that his parents adopted him. Not without a hint of sarcasm, Cobain claims he felt he was born to aliens, dropped to earth on a spaceship, and awaiting the day when he would uncover other aliens living amongst the homogeneous earthlings. As the story unfolds, organic landscapes meld into clever, lo-fi animation of flying saucers. Cobain's words provide such literal accompaniments throughout the film, giving it a lucid sense of fluidity.

Cobain walks us through his adolescence in the logging town of Aberdeen, where he transformed from a happy-go-lucky kid to a bitter child of divorce. During this era, his aunt exposed him to The Beatles and gave him his first guitar, on which he practiced incessantly. However, this part of his life was also mired by the trappings of teenage outcasts: Bullied in high school, no friends, scoliosis, physical abuse, manic depression. His words betray the conflict inherent in bipolar disorder, as he vacillates between total opposition (“People don't deserve to know about my personal life, fuck them”), to self-deprecation (he divulges that his upbringing was the same as 90% of his generation), to self-aggrandizement (appearing indifferent towards, and even claiming he preferred being homeless). These conflicting perspectives are a poignant theme, and mirror the turbulence of his life, and range of moods within the interviews.

After high school, he couch-surfed and slept under underpasses in Montesano, gaining exposure to punkers like The Melvins and Vaselines. When he moved to Olympia with a girlfriend -- who provided him with shelter, food, and time to cultivate his songwriting -- he scored: It was in Olympia where Nirvana was signed by Sub Pop Records, and eventually launched to fame, although that oft-analyzed struggle also made him hate journalists. By the time he actually makes it to Seattle, Cobain has started confessing his burgeoning nihilism, the intense stomach pain he cures daily with $400 of heroin, and his bond with Courtney Love, also revealing his desire to create music with others, and break away from Nirvana. It's a poignant journey that end in tears and gunshots.

For Nirvana die-hards, casual fans, and anyone who came of age during the era, Kurt Cobain: About a Son is a worthy enterprise. The soundtrack is an eclectic playlist Cobain would spin, and as a bonus, the DVD is fit with director's commentary, as well as a look at the scouting process involved in capturing the cities and towns that shaped Cobain's life. And without the filter of a writer, Cobain's words are present in their rawest form, leaving it up to the viewer to decide whether he was an archetypal visionary driven by physical and psychological pain, or just a disenchanted punk proving his worth.

By any means necessary.

February 20, 2008