Named after a nerve-jangling sound collage that he once created, Montage of Heck is a portrait of Nirvana leader and grunge idol Kurt Cobain, who killed himself in 1994. Directed by Brett Morgen, who made the Robert Evans documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture, the film benefits not least from the fact that Cobain must have been caught as a child in home movies more than any other cultural icon. His story is illustrated by sometimes revealing interviews with his parents (especially mother Wendy O’Connor), widow Courtney Love and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic. It’s also padded out to excessive length by animations illustrating Cobain’s reminiscences of a singularly bleak youth, and by impressionistic sequences that animate his sour solipsistic jottings – an overworked effect that only serves to romanticise his mental problems.
Home videos of Cobain and Love are as depressing as you’d expect, and while a producer credit for the couple’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain suggests a fond celebration of the film’s subject, he doesn’t emerge as a hugely compelling character. The argument for Cobain’s brilliance never quite convinces until towards the end, with his MTV Unplugged performance, in which a whole new compelling register to his talent emerges – too late for the film, and alas, for the singer himself.
