Control

A portrait of the post-punk singer as a young man; Anton Corbijn, famous for his moody black and white photos of rock musicians, was a suprising yet natural choice to direct this study of Ian Curtis and the downward spiral of his short life, through marriage, infidelity, illness, a seemingly unwanted growing success as front man of that moodiest and black and white of bands, Joy Division, then ultimately to his suicide in May 1980 at 23 years of age.

As well as straight photography, Corbijn has also cut his teeth making memorable videos, not only for Joy Division’s posthumous “Atmosphere” single but also for the likes of such demanding clients as Depeche Mode, Nirvana and Metallica. He also made the blinding promo for Front 242’s “Headhunter”. which is something really worth looking for on good old YouTube. Anyways, this much we know: Corbijn has a way with an image, moving or otherwise.

Joy Division are very much a band where imagery is essential to the myth. In 1978/79/80 the lenses of Corbijn and local photographer Kevin Cummins presented the band as a very serious matter indeed, capturing them within, and as the product of, a grim, austere environment not so much resembling the Manchester as we might know it today but rather somewhere akin to a 1970s East Germany where the Stasi are checking your papers and taking notes on your telephone conversations.

Control offers nothing quite so harsh. A rather muted affair filmed in suitable monochrome, its setting and working-class distinctiveness carries strong echoes of 1960s British kitchen-sink social dramas, only without so much in the way of the larger-than-life characters we’d find propping up a bar or scrapping outside at closing time in Saturday Night & Sunday Morning and the like. Band manager Rob Gretton (Toby Kebbell) aside, most of the characters in Control don’t have an awful lot to say for themselves or to each other; my major criticism of the film must be that the dialogue too often feels flat and underwritten with minimal conversational spark amongst individuals, whom for some reason, feel the need to keep the company of people with whom they have little in common to discuss.

Sam Riley is on the surface a little too pretty to be playing Curtis, but he does a remarkable job in recreating the singer’s mannerisms on stage - albeit without quite the same intensity as the real thing’s man-fighting-to-get-out-of-his-own-skin frantic energy we’ve seen on old TV footage - as well as the downbeat, rather lonely body language conveyed through those iconic photos. Aloof, angry, guilt-stricken; Riley does Curtis pretty much as well as we could expect. The character’s epileptic seizures are rightly played unflinchingly and disturbingly to all. Also, as ever, striking a chord, is Samantha Morton as Ian’s girlfriend, wife and then widow, Debbie, upon whose biography of her late husband this film is based.

Admirers of Downfall will be pleased to find that film’s Traudl Junge (the delectable Alexander Maria Lara), appearing here as Curtis’ empathetic Belgian mistress, Annik; his almost understandable affair with whom helped sow the seeds of his ruin.

Like Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People, Joy Division members Hook, Sumner and Morris are peripheral figures here, but unlike that film, so here is Factory label boss and Granada TV personality Tony Wilson. The late Wilson is portrayed curiously as a rather toadying, diffident figure whose charges afford little respect - an image at odds with that of the confident, verbose and occasionally belligerent smartarse familiar through countless interviews.

Control isn’t about music, though there’s plenty on the soundtrack - some of which is performed by the cast themselves. Producer Martin Hannett, who was so crucial in creating the Joy Division sound is only nodded to here in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it portrayal highlighting, for some light relief, the man's alleged obnoxiousness. Curtis’ lyrics are recited by Riley a number of times but there’s little sense of the evolution of his or the band’s creative ideas, which are something perhaps considered best left to documentaries to explore.

Corbijn’s eye for an iconic shot is present throughout; Control could be paused at almost any point and the viewer would find an image captured in a rule of thirds (and other) photographic compositional style. The director and cinematographer manage to make the grey industrial side of Manchester, as well as Macclesfield with its terraced houses and hills, look beautiful.

Though without truly, I feel, getting to the heart of this story, Control is a worthy piece of work; though maybe best enjoyed by those who aren’t particularly fans of Joy Division.