"Here are the young men..."

Rating: 10/10 (21 October 2007)

Obviously, coming from Manchester and being of a certain age this is not going to be a totally objective view, but nevertheless...
I really liked "24 Hour Party People" a lot, but I always felt the portrayal of Ian Curtis was a bit two dimensional. If you want to get a little further inside the personality of this impossibly complicated and uniquely gifted young man then you could do a lot worse than see this film. It is achingly beautiful to look at, a testament to Anton Corbijn, because 1970s Manchester was a much more bleak place than it is now. It tells the story of an intellectual trapped in working class Macclesfield who is resigned to his place in society... until lightning strikes when he talks himself into the position of lead singer of "Stiff Kittens" who eventually rename themselves "Joy Division". Sadly, by this point in his life, he is already married and when some of the trappings of his burgeoning stardom are placed in his path he starts a struggle to reconcile his 'two' lives... a struggle he will never win. What "Joy Division" does afford him though, is a means of delivery for his 1970s Wordsworthian poetry... something that the oft overlooked other members of the band perfectly frame with their atmospheric music.
This is not a glossy biopic, nor does it treat its subject matter with undue reverence. Curtis, astonishingly portrayed by Sam Riley, comes across as a tortured young man who is unable or unwilling to break off his affair with the Belgian journalist Annik Honnore and reciprocate the devotion and love of his wife Deborah. The film offers no simple answers as to why this talented young poet on the cusp of mainstream popularity would choose to take his own life. Rather it suggests a cocktail of circumstances: epilepsy, medication, torn between his love for two women, trapped between two very different worlds... that might have combined to his eventual self-destruction.
The last half-hour of "Control" is very difficult to watch. But, having read "Touching From A Distance", the grisly denouement is handled with much sensitivity and dignity. Unlike "Touching From A Distance", which this viewer could never read again, the film ends with a curious optimism and a striking visual image. They were indeed "the young men... and never were free"... well one of them will forever remain that way and found his freedom far from this mortal coil. We are left with some 50 or so songs and now this beautiful film. I recommend it to anyone who has ever been touched by the music of Joy Division and is somewhat curious about how something so darkly beautiful could have arisen from the urban decay of 1970s Manchester.