a better biopic

Movie Review- Control, directed by Anton Corbijn, 2007

As a Joy Division fan, I had been eagerly awaiting the Ian Curtis biopic Control even before it came to Virginia for its short cinematic run. But I didnt see it in the theater. I watched it just the other day, rented from the illustrious Video Fan.

My initial reaction went something like this: That was the greatest soundtrack Ive ever heard in my life. And it was, probably. Bowie, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, and just about every Joy Division song included on any greatest hits anthology: you cant really go wrong with a line-up like that. The music is used well, too. It helps that Corbijn is a music video director in his spare time. The film juxtaposes its incredible soundtrack with Curtis dreary northern youth in a way that cuts right to what music means during our formative years. And the performances of Joy Division songs by the cast are incredible.

So thats out of the way. But as a movie, my other reaction was to be let down. Theres been a glut of music biopics over the last few years, and most have been of a grand Hollywood varietyfilms about legendary so-and-sos who ascend to angelic status before our very eyes. Maybe thats what I expected. Anyway, I was initially let down by the plodding nature of the films story-telling, the expected focus on marital infidelity and drug abuse, and the lack of big shiny heroic things happening.

The movie is filmed in a rather impressive black-and-white, and I think that may have been what made me rethink my initial feelings. I started thinking about all those sad Italian and French Neo-Realism movies I watched back when I considered myself intellectual enough to say things like Italian and French Neo-Realism. Those films were usually about normal people in desperate situations, trying their best to get by with what they had. There was a deep humanity to those movies, however snobbish the genre sounds.

I thought of Control again along those lines. If Ian Curtis isnt a cult hero, and if he isnt this years Johnny Cash or Ray Charles, but instead just a person like any of the rest of us--only tortured by epilepsy, sudden fame, and prescribed depression--then Corbijn's film is a wild success.

A wild success with a really good soundtrack.