CINEMA: Control

It’s 27 years since Ian Curtis, the charismatic-yet-troubled lead singer with Joy Division committed suicide, so now may seem a strange time to film the story of his life. Yet, although it is steeped in the feel and the look of the 1970s and 1980s, there is something timeless about Control. Directed by photographer Anton Corbijn and shot in grainy black and white, it is a pared back, simply told tale of small hopes, aspirations and disappointments.

Sam Riley is simply amazing as Curtis, desperate to escape the confines of Macclesfield and his crippling epilepsy through his music. Even when Joy Division started to become famous and Curtis began an affair with young Belgian Annik Honore (Alexandra Maria Lara) he still felt bonded to his hometown by ties of loyalty and guilt to his wife Deborah (Samantha Morton) and their young daughter. Corbijn allows the film to move to its own internal rhythm, without embellishment, and this gives it an integrity and dignity that makes you empathise with the main protagonists.

There is no background score (although songs by Bowie and the Sex Pistols are included) so the scenes of the band performing become musical milestones throughout the film – songs such as Transmission, Insight and especially She’s Lost Control underlining Curtis’s tormented state of mind. Even if you’re not a Joy Division fan, Control is an impressive exploration of creativity and the demons that sometimes accompany it. Dee Pilgrim