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Average Review: Sales Rank: 820
Actors: Samantha Morton, Sam Riley II, Alexandra Maria Lara, Joe Anderson VI, Toby Kebbell Director: Anton Corbijn Rating: Features: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen Number of Discs: 1 Running Time: 122 minutes Release Date: June 3, 2008 Theatrical Release Date: 2007 Studio: The Weinstein Company
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Based on the memoir TOUCHING FROM A DISTANCE by Deborah Curtis Anton Corbijn s CONTROL is as near perfect a filmic telling of the story of Joy Division and Ian Curtis as any fan could hope for. It s also a beautifully rendered piece of cinema about the crippling effects of love and regret and the salvation we seek in art. Born out of England s post-Sex Pistols punk explosion Joy Division played a dark minimalist version of the nascent sound and became cult heroes thanks in part to their brilliant yet disturbed frontman Ian Curtis played by an eerily perfect Sam Riley. Corbijn does a wonderful job recreating the Manchester band s music and live show cutting straight to the essence of Joy Division s unique appeal. Credit must also be given to the three actors who portray the rest of Joy Division. Playing all the instruments themselves they perfectly capture the band s powerfully stoic presence one that translates both live and on record into the sonic equivalent of an existential crisis.CONTROL however is ultimately about Curtis s tumultuous marriage with his wife Deborah Samantha Morton and the way that Joy Division became an aesthetic manifestation of his pain--one that was both physical Curtis was an epileptic and emotional. Corbijn evokes Curtis s hurt and isolation with both honesty and subtlety: a photographer originally he frames each shot to look like a stark black-and-white photo from an album the audience was never meant to see making Curtis s pain palpable and his eventual suicide that much more tragic. The overtones to the later suicide of Kurt Cobain are hard to avoid but where Cobain s suicide has always been discussed in terms of the pressure he felt as a rock star Curtis s as rendered by Corbijn is a pain anyone could potentially be forced to suffer through.System Requirements:Running Time: 122 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/DYING YOUNG UPC: 796019810258 Manufacturer No: 81025
In his elegiac debut, Anton Corbijn combines the music film with the social drama to stunning success. Based on Deborah Curtis's clear-eyed biography, Touching from a Distance, Control recounts the wrenching tale of a working-class lad about to hit the highest highs only to be waylaid by the lowest lows. Born and raised in Macclesfield, a suburban community outside Manchester, Ian Curtis newcomer Sam Riley in a remarkable performance dreams of fronting a band. Just out of high school in the mid-1970s, he finds three like minds with whom he forms post-punk quartet Warsaw--better known as Joy Division Riley and castmates ably recreate their somber sound. All the while, he falls in love, marries, and fathers a child with Deborah Samantha Morton, turning a thankless role into a triumph. While Curtis should be enjoying parenthood and newfound fame, he's plagued by seizures. A diagnosis of epilepsy leads to powerful medications with unpredictable side effects. Then, while on tour, he falls in love with another woman. His solution to these problems is a matter of public record, but Corbijn concentrates on Curtis's life rather than his death. Just as Control establishes a link between such disparate black and white works as fellow photographer Bruce Weber's Let's Get Lost and kitchen-sink classics like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, the Dutch-born, UK-based director presents his subject not as some iconic T-shirt image, but as a deeply flawed--if massively talented--human being. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
