Formally speaking, Grant Gee’s documentary breaks little new ground. As a narrative, it follows a grimly familiar trajectory, from the band’s formation until singer Ian Curtis’ suicide on the eve of what should have been their breakthrough US tour. Paul Morley’s first appearance is 11 minutes in.
Arriving after two acclaimed feature films (24 Hour Party People, Control) and countless other documentaries, Joy Division is treading some awfully familiar ground. Are we still prepared to watch a bunch of chattering heads pick over Mr. Curtis’ corpse?
Too right, we are. Especially when those heads include Peter Hook at his most laconic and the late Tony Wilson at his most philosophical. We have, of course, seen Barney Sumner and Stephen Morris being deadpan and strangely boyish before. But Mr. Gee’s presentation, if lacking in stylistic innovation or All New Material, is impressively thoughtful. Any film that kicks off with a quote from Marshall Berman’s All That Is Solid Melts Into Air is not going to be afraid of a little musing. The band’s symbiotic relationship with Manchester, an interdependence that was overlooked by Control, finds central place. Post-war Salford, a place where your grandparents still held on to their gasmasks and modernist ideals had lost their lustre, is evoked to good effect.
Testimonies from interested bystanders – Curtis’ girlfriend Annik Honore, Crispy Ambulance’s Alan Hempsall, an endearing batty Genesis P’Orridge – are candid in nature. But it’s the bootleg concert footage that really makes the movie. Nobody has ever assembled so much filmed evidence of Curtis’ robotic demon dance. Suddenly all those rock rhapsodies to his live performances look awfully understated.
It is depressing to note just how many of the film’s contributors – Rob Gretton, Martin Hannett, John Peel and Tony Wilson – are now ghosts, existing only as archive footage. One suspects that this is the end, a fitting full stop to the Joy Division movie sub-genre.