Kurt & Courtney

Mike Broomfield's documentary about grunge rock star Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love is very much for fans only. Adopting his characteristic low-fi approach,door-knocking with his tape-recorder and cameraman in tow, and backed with the BBC imprimateur, Broomfield investigates the conspiracy theories surrounding Cobain's death, in short the notion that he was murdered by his wife or her hireling.  

Whilst many documentaries have aspects which resonate beyond the specifics of their subject, Kurt & Courtney (the title a reference to famed punk couple Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen) is a piecemeal collection of meandering interviews that never really pose any interesting questions or come up with any clarifying answers about a topic which is sad but of little real interest. One is no clearer at the end than at the beginning on whether Cobain committed suicide or was killed by his moll of a wife. Indeed the only thing that emerges for the film is that Courtney Love is a nasty piece of work. Even her own father Hank Harrison who has written two books on Cobain’s death does not dismiss the idea that she had a hand in his demise. As for his ideas of parenting well you can see where his daughter started to go wrong.

Broomfield ekes out his thin material by introducing the meta-issue of the now-wealthy Love applying pressure to have the documentary stopped, which she effectively does. Broomfield gets his revenge however as she comes across as a hag who may not have actually killed Cobain but was certainly capable of driving him to kill himself. Who wouldn't have?

 

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