A dull, clichéd movie

Rating: 3/10 (19 February 2012)

Let me start out by stating that I am a fan of Joy Division. I love both of their studio albums and I feel that Ian Curtis' lyrics possess a deep and alluring poetry, despite the suggested darkness and nihilism contained within. Strangely enough I usually avoid watching films solely because they concern themselves with interesting true life stories, this is because they are usually badly done. The director feels as if s/he needs to tell the story in a particular way with particular motifs. They are usually badly paced as a result of trying to stitch together a real story whilst having to artificially give prominence to certain events, which the fans expect to see not just included but emphasised. And they generally lack inspiration as works of art in themselves, far too often feeding off the legend that surrounds the subject matter rather than actually adding anything new in terms of creativity or insight. This film is guilty of all these things and will only further entrench my reluctance to watch films about interesting true life stories in future.
How does this film get it wrong? Well first of all Corbijn comes across as uncreative and uninteresting as a directorial presence. His pacing is poor, there are far too many uninteresting, drawn-out scenes, particularly the one with Ian and Annik alone, which should never have made the final cut, it was so dull I thought I might go into a trance. He also fails to provide the right pacing for us to understand why Ian goes from being a bit insular but basically a pretty balanced and ambitious guy to a confused, ill, depressed, whining, self-destructive maudlin presence. It's almost as if he has a personality transplant halfway through the film, and is just one example of where this film is actually jarring. Let me also mention the cinematography. I'm not one of those people who has a problem with black and white films in any way shape or form. Films like Europa, Manhattan and Raging Bull are wonderful examples of black and white cinematography used to fascinating effect. But this film is an example of when black and white photography is a completely redundant and, yes I'm going to say it, pretentious exercise. It added nothing to the film at all, no mood, no aesthetic quality, nothing. In fact it serves to disengage the viewer from the time period which is early 70s through to 1980. You know how ridiculous the decision is when Ian's watching Stroszek, a film released in 1976 and filmed in colour, in black and white, it just adds a layer of confusion that shouldn't be in the film, we should be connecting not unnecessarily visually disconnected from the story.
I could talk about the lack of character development the mediocre acting from Sam Riley, the complete and utter lack of insight that we get into Ian Curtis' character, Joy Division the band and even the Manchester music scene of the 70s but I'd be here for a long while. In short there is very little that is interesting or of value in this film, a documentary on Ian Curtis and Joy Division on youtube would serve as a much better investment of your time.
3/10