It's not just love that tore him apart

Rating: 9/10 (7 February 2010)

Perhaps I'm extremely biased because I'm a big fanatic of the British New Wave music founders – and Joy Division in particular – but "Control" is truly one of the best and most astounding biographies I ever beheld! This movie had me staring at the TV-screen with my eyes, ears and mouth wide open from the beginning till the very end of the closing credits. This film does not only describe the regrettably short life of Ian Curtis, singer and songwriter of the influential band called Joy Division, it completely also plays like his life: modest, depressing, anxious, sober, careful and saddening. "Control" is primarily a portrait of a struggling man instead of an aspiring band. The prompt and relatively fast rise of Joy Division is merely a footnote in the story of a talented young man who seemingly never had the ambition of becoming an international music star. Ian Curtis' life differs tremendously from all the other musicians in the world. He proposed to join a struggling band named Warsaw as a singer simply to help them out. He wrote songs about the things he saw happening around him ("She Lost Control" is a beautiful example) and never even intended to quit his day job by his own initiative. Whereas all his fellow band members and young manager are trying to make the name Joy Division known and famous to the public, Ian Curtis married his teenage love and had a child. The increasing success of Joy Division is inversely proportional to the downwards spiral of Ian Curtis as an individual. His continuous anxiety causes the condition of epilepsy, he becomes dependent to heavy medication, loves two women at the same time and he can't bring himself to enjoy his newly obtained fatherhood. Ian Curtis committed suicide one day prior to the band's very first scheduled USA tour and without ever leaving behind a farewell note or a cry for help. His life story was a tragic one, and Anton Corbijn's film is a perplexing re-telling of the barely four years of vital events that brought this talented young man down.
Of course, Anton Corbijn very much knew what he was filming about. This native Dutch director started out as a music photographer in the 70's and developed into a music video director for acclaimed bands like R.E.M, Depeche Mode and Metallica. Apparently the band Joy Division fascinated him since the beginning and nearly 30 years after Ian Curtis' death, he finally realized his much ambitioned biography project with the help of the memoirs of Curtis' widow Deborah Curtis (depicted in the film by Samantha Morton). "Control" also largely relies on brilliant casting and dedicated performances. The actors do not only look a lot like the original Joy Division/New Order band members, they also actually learned to play the Joy Division songs themselves. And extremely well, I may add, as illustrated through clips of "Transmission", "Digital" and "Dead Souls". Sam Riley, a relatively unknown actor from West Yorkshire, truly gives a tour-de-force performance as Ian Curtis and too often it really felt as if I was watching archive footage of the real Joy Division singer. Anton Corbijn creates the exact right atmosphere through long sequences of silence, moody black and white photography and rudimentary set pieces. The soundtrack contains works from other music geniuses like David Bowie, Roxy Music and Iggy Pop. A must see movie.