Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) review

            Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) has the distinction of being the first Kurt Cobain documentary made with the cooperation of the Cobain family (Cobain’s daughter, widow, and mother). This film stays away from any of the conspiracies or conjecture swirling around Cobain’s suicide. To convey the narrative and prevent any one talking head’s point of view to dominate the narrative the filmmakers rely largely on home videos, Kurt’s own artwork, notebooks, and journals some dating back to Kurt Cobain’s early childhood. Lucky for the film maker it appears Kurt Cobain’s mother kept all his childhood art projects. This choice gives you some very personal insight into the doc’s subject and allows the director/writer Brett Morgen to not make a traditional biography or an over glorified Behind the Music. The film has a sense of honesty and candor that is exemplified in the scenes taken from home videos of Kurt Cobain and his wife bathing their baby daughter.
            Mr. Morgen doesn’t fill in the blanks of Kurt’s life with theory and postulation or give rationalizations or explanations for actions. The films real trick is making you feel satisfied you’ve been told a complete narrative despite the shadowy ambiguous areas. Morgen’s access to archived material and use of journals and artwork is ingenious because it allows the deceased to tell us his own tale posthumously through his artistic expression.  The film uses several interview clips where Kurt himself tells the viewer, “The art speaks for itself”.  Noticeably missing from the documentary is former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. Mr. Grohl’s absence is ever more conspicuous due to his former band mate Krist Novoselic compelling and charismatic interview intercut and used throughout the film.
            The movie doesn’t attempt to fill in the blanks nor should it. The film is less about the facts and figures of Cobain’s life but how those events made him feel and how it influenced his art. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) is a fantastic example of a narrative that shows rather than tells through amazing access to Kurt Cobain’s art work and archives.  If you’re in the mood for a documentary with interesting storytelling choices and devices or a music fan you’ll enjoy this film. 

  4 out of 5 cardigans. RECOMMEND 
By Jake S. Cohen