The long road to Nirvana

Do you remember the rush of blood to your head the first time you heard the riffs that gave way to a growling Cobain in Smells Like Teen Spirit? Brett Morgen's Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck brings back those familiar feelings fuelled by the adrenaline-filled days of your teenage angst past.

The documentary, released in limited territories by HBO earlier in May, is gearing up for an international release in a few months. It encapsulates the life of the doomed star who took his life by pulling a trigger, perhaps because being a star was not really his thing. It is a fierce portrait of a troubled man grappling with Nirvana's stardom, with hours of home videos, Cobain's artwork and journal entries, photographs and interviews. Two key people conspicuous by their absence are Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, now the frontman of Foo Fighters, and Cobain's daughter Frances Bean, who is the documentary's executive producer.

Frances Bean has always maintained her dislike for Nirvana, and her thinly-veiled distancing from her father's memory is still seen as her staying away from the troubled past of her parents. Grohl, on the other hand, seems to have stayed away owing to his many public differences with Cobain's wife, Courtney Love, since his death.

The Cobain journey starts with a happy childhood in Aberdeen. His mother Wendy O'Connor remembers him as a thoughtful, content and creative child. Trouble brews when Cobain is seven years old and his parents divorce. The breakup of his family leaves a deep impact. Unable to come to terms with his parents moving on to new families, Cobain resorts to erratic behaviour. His journal and guitar become twin solaces, and he pours himself into them.

As he spirals into unmanageable teenhood, Cobain discovers punk and pot – not too surprising for a troubled American teen growing up in the '80s. What Cobain does with his discoveries has made for rock folklore. Along with friend Krist Novoselic, he fronts Nirvana in high school, and after several line-up changes, settles on Grohl as his drummer in 1990.

Soon after they move to Seattle, they release their first album Bleach in 1989. It is, however, Nevermind (1991), with the iconic Smells Like Teen Spirit that shapes the grunge metal sound and captures the imagination of a whole generation. Some of the finest moments of the documentary include animated sequences stylised by Stefan Nadelman and Hisko Hulsing, that fuse Cobain's artwork with some of the music videos. In one instance, an eerie cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit has a children's choir version of the song.
 

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, apparently eight years in the making, looks at Cobain's relationship with Courtney. They were a wildly-popular couple, mostly attracting notoriety for their love of drugs and alcohol. The documentary steers away from hushed allegations about Courtney's infidelities and instead looks at the humane relationship Cobain shares with her. They do everyday things: fool around, bathe together and raise Frances. For the most part, one can see how much Cobain wanted to be the father he never had.

What is searingly poignant is Cobain's inability to deal with fame. There are reports and interviews where he expresses his need to be left alone. In school, he befriended a gay classmate just so others would stay away. "I found a lot of power in being gay, and I wish I was gay, just so that I could keep those homophobes away," he wrote in his journal. And when Nirvana's fame explodes, Cobain's spiralling into his own doom is a tad frightening.

Morgen, whose earlier works include The Kid Stays in the Picture and Chicago 10, puts in a lot of effort in the movie and stumbles on hours of unseen footage and a lot of unheard material. Six of the eight years that went into the film were spent in courts over footage rights. There is also word that Morgen may help come up with a new Nirvana album soon.

In an interview after he made the film, Morgen said: "More than anything, you see the film and walk away from it, and realise he's just a man or man child who was more accessible, in a way, than we ever knew and had so much more to love." And that's simply why you must experience Montage of Heck – to know the troubled, yet loveable man hiding behind Kurt Cobain.