Soundscapes of Emptiness

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2010)

This is a beautiful film of an achingly bleak, short life.
We follow Ian Curtis from April 1973 to his death in May 1980, the night before Joy Division's first American tour would have launched. Schoolboy pill-stealing hijinks and fumbling romance are punctuated with moody thoughts and a first, telling, absence seizure (petit mal) in class.
Ian married his sweetheart at 19, just as punk rock exploded across England and alienated teens started grabbing musical instruments and stripping the accretions off rock and roll. He joined a band with some mates, and the rest truly is history.
Sam Riley does such an amazing job playing Ian that I kept having to remind myself it wasn't actually him - the thin hunched shoulders that sagged lower as multiple stresses piled up, the writhing spasmodic movements onstage, all look so much like the real footage of Ian that it's quite uncanny. His portrait of severe depression is spot-on, too. The scene where Debbie confronts him and he shrinks back into himself as she backs him into a corner was familiar to anyone who's ever suffered clinical depression.
The lack of a score combines with the photography to provide deep, still, lonely scenes, making the viewer feel the emptiness and isolation growing within him. When the music finally comes in, it fills the space but at the same time rips at you.
I was a fan of Joy Division back then (and still), and so May 18th 1980 was a doubly depressing day for me - I'd been very excited that Joy Division was touring the US, and as an added bonus for us Seattleites, Mt. St. Helens decided to blow her top. A fitting memorial, perhaps.