Joy Division Review

Reviews

May 2nd 2008 By Total Film

One group, two albums, three movies (counting 24 Hour Party People) and, surprisingly, it’s Grant Gee’s doc that gets closer to both Joy Division as a band and Ian Curtis as a person. While Control was a pristine, neo-kitchen-sink portrait of a sadly unknowable boy, Gee uses unheard, naked testimonies (Curtis’ lover Annik Honoré) and the singer’s speaking voice – captured weeks before his suicide – to glean a feeling of the man from those he touched. Gee’s arty manipulation of rock-doc staples (talking heads, archive film) has a vitality worthy of the music, making decayed bootleg footage luminous while contextualising JD within Manchester’s psychic landscape. Emotive and funny – the New Order boys puncturing the bloated theorising of critics with bursts of anecdote – Joy Division is no glum retrospective of a ‘depressing’ band. You won’t walk away in silence…