Ryan McNeil
Saturday morning began with a big film for me. When I’m not blogging and running around film festivals, I’m a photographer. When I was first getting into photography, Anton Corbijn was one of the artists I was inspired by. So it was with great anticipation today that I went to see CONTROL (* * * *) his biopic on Ian Curtis and Joy Division.
It was a big crowd for a 9am screening, which is usually a good sign. I won’t pretend to be a huge Joy Division fan. My best friend and younger brother know far more about them then I do – my best friend’s wife could circles around them both. I do listen to a lot of Joy Division, but in my musical DNA, they land somewhere in the middle-lower bunch of chromosomes.
Regardless, you don’t have to be a Joy Division fan to love this film. Gorgeously shot in black and white, it follows young Ian Curtis from the time he was a teenager to his suicide at age 23. In between he was inspired by Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, got married incredibly young, and became the lead singer of one of the most influential British bands ever. Along the way he struggles with marital fidelity, and cases of epilepsy. The former stands squarely in the way of his relationship with his wife. The latter, stands in the way of his ability to stand on stage and perform. Thankfully, the film doesn’t try to rosy up the story of this fragile and often misguided person, and doesn’t romanticize the mistakes that he makes in his life.
There are about two dozen moments in the film that I wanted to freeze and put into a frame on my wall. The music is as amazing as you’d guess, and the acting is first rate for a cast of relative unknowns. Sam Harris does a great job of portraying Curtis – my only knock on him, was that he was singing a tad too on-key. Craig Parkinson does some great work as Tony Wilson- the head of Factory Records, Joy Division’s label, and Toby Kebbel also lends some good humour as Rob Gretton, the band’s manager.
Fantastic film. First-rate soundtrack. It’s in theatres in October – go see it.