Kurt Cobain: About a Son (2007)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Even though it's just a bunch of videos and images shown with the recordings of Kurt's interviews, it gives a perspective about the early years of his life, heard from his own lips with pictures of places trying to make you visualize what it was like to live through what he was talking about.

This is actually a pretty touchy and immersive tape interview with Kurt Cobain. From where he comes from, what he dealt with while growing up, where his passion for music started. His involvement with his bandmates and how they got to where they got while dealing with personal issues. And his inner demons and what he is passionate about and etc. It's a fascinating and yet sad coverage of Kurt Cobain from his interviews. I just think instead of random pictures and video clips, it could have had animation and digital animation with Kurt Cobain. If your a fan of Nirvana or Kurt Cobain, this film is worth checking out. Just about everything when it comes to the interviews has been edited almost perfectly in a congruent manner. The main gripe I have about this movie, is that you will probably be better off listening to a CD of this instead of watching a movie of the interview.6/10

I thought this was an excellent little piece, and this is some of the most honest portrayal of Kurt Cobain you'll ever hear on audio tapes of actual interviews conducted a year before his death. This is not your average documentary and you will not see any clips of Nirvana or really even any pictures or footage of Kurt at all except for a grand total of maybe 2 minutes of short footage of some photographs taken from a few live performances and a few photo shoots. Besides that it is nothing but locations relevant to his life in Washington, mainly Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle, the main places he's lived in in the 3 main periods of his life.I found this utterly fascinating and personally I loved the footage of city streets, random everyday people from those cities that Kurt spent his life in, gorgeous views of vistas, cityscapes and other such eye candy to free your mind and let Kurt do all the talking. It never once gets boring despite a great deal of the footage being nothing interesting at all, some parts showing a part of Washington state that is dull, lifeless and depressing, but ultimately it all shows insight into why Kurt became the person he became and gives you images to go with the subjects Kurt is speaking of. I really cannot agree with the negative reviews of this film and I loved it. I am a huge Nirvana fan and I find Kurt Cobain utterly fascinating granted, but I am not a biased fan at all. This is a very very honest portrayal of Kurt Cobain. You might not even like him much when the movie is over. He can be quite depressing and a tragic figure to listen to, but one thing is for sure, he always had something interesting to say and never sugarcoated anything and always spoke from the heart. This is a true look at the real Kurt Cobain in his own words and for that, I commend it highly. My only complaint is that I wish it could have been a bit longer and I wish that there could have been a more complete in-depth analysis of his life as a lot of things were skipped over.

I attended a screening of -Kurt Cobain, About A Son at the Seattle International Film Festival. As you can expect with a hometown audience, the audience was ready to fall in love with this film going in. For the most part, the film did not disappoint. The most powerful aspect of the film is the fact that we hear Kurt Cobain's voice speaking his own words, a far better idea than the standard documentary format that features "experts" and fans talking about what made a person great. In the interviews, Cobain is happy, depressed, funny, bitter, excited, exhausted, gracious, resentful, kind, sarcastic ... but always engaging and interesting. It was also powerful to see the images of the towns in which Cobain lived -- Aberdeen, Olympia, and Seattle -- as he talked about different phases of his life. I agree with an earlier poster's comment that saving actual images of Cobain and Nirvana until the end really worked. After all, it is Cobain's voice that is his greatest legacy, and by filling our eyes with images of industrial workers, train trestles, run-down houses, liquor stores, street corners, and so on, the film reminds the viewer that Cobain was a man, first and foremost, and an icon later. And the soundtrack is AWESOME! Kurt talks a great deal about bands that influenced him as he grew up and started writing songs, and many of these artists were kind enough to grant permission to the film-makers to use their music for free. I hope that a soundtrack album is released at some point. My only complaint was the film-makers' choice to include images of places, buildings, and scenes (especially in Seattle) that were not around when Cobain was alive. How much did the Mariners' baseball stadium (which opened in 1999) "shape" the person who became Kurt Cobain, and I somehow doubt that Cobain spent any time at Starbucks. Nevertheless, I highly recommend the film to anyone who loves Nirvana or is fascinated by the man.