Control

“Control” releases on DVD today.

“Control” is the story of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of legendary post-punk band Joy Division, and is the first full-length film from Anton Corbijn. This is a marriage made in heaven. You’ve seen his photography, even if you don’t know it. Corbijn has been the creme de la creme of photographers and videographers for post-punk, New Wave bands since New Wave bands existed. He’s done every Depeche Mode and U2 album cover, and most of their videos. He even worked with Joy Division back in the day. This must have inspired confidence in Debbie Curtis, when she allowed him to take the biography of Ian Curtis she had written and put it on the screen.

Corbijn tells Curtis’ story in in a remarkably straightforward way. So much so that I don’t think you have to know anything about Joy Division to comprehend this movie; mostly, the band is just Curtis’ job, a job which sometimes sheds light (through the soundtrack) on his inner state of being. Talented, troubled, epileptic, possibly mentally ill, Curtis committed suicide in his kitchen right before Joy Division began their U.S. tour. “Control” at its weakest feels like an afterschool special about the dangers of marrying young — Ian and Debbie Curtis got married as teenagers, and almost all of his problems seem to be blamed on this one ill-advised choice. I don’t have much patience for this kind of stuff; I don’t think marriage is a choice you make once, but one you make every day, and, if necessary, rearrange your life to accomodate. By the end of the first reel, I was pretty annoyed with Ian Curtis and the practiced distance he kept from his wife and child. I was supposed to feel sorry for him; I didn’t. I wanted to sit him down and speak some strong words to him.

But then “Control” establishes such a distinct mood and tone, and sustains it for so long, that my annoyance and strong words melted away into it. I begin to get it. Curtis knows he’s a bad husband and absent father. He knows touring with the band just makes things worse. He knows cheating on his wife is the wrong thing to do. And yet he seems powerless to change anything. Now if someone had told me that story in just as many words as I told you, I would probably scoff and snap and bark at them. Like I said, I have little patience for people who think marriage should be easy and fun all the time. But as I watched Sam Riley play Ian Curtis as a man who wants to change, but can’t muster the energy, courage, or stamina, as I felt him feel his life spiral out of control and out of the realm of possibility into the realm of inevitability, my attitude changed. I sympathized. I began to understand that even when you know what the right thing to do is, even when you want to do the right thing, sometimes you’re just not capable. “Control” never makes excuses for Ian Curtis, who never made any for himself. It just shows a man helplessly overwhelmed by who he is, and who he wants to be instead.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am7oS8x5qDA]

This is an outstanding achievement by a film, to be able to carry me along far enough to abandon my own prejudices and opinions. Few films indeed have this power. It is achieved by the strong acting of Sam Riley, who never seems to miss a beat, never tells something he can show. And by the remarkable consistency of tone held by Anton Corbijn, for a remarkably long time. Usually this dark and morose tone would get old after about an hour, and mutate into self-pity and pretension. Somehow Corbijn avoids those pitfalls. The result, is a stark, morose, powerful film that transcends the label “biopic.”

Recommended

• to “Joy Division” fans.
• to black and white photography/Anton Corbijn fans.
• to anyone who has felt the weight of depression, past mistakes, and present inadequacy, and knows that “inspirational advice” can just make it worse.
• if you can find the beauty in feeling morose and melancholy (ie, if you’re a John Keats fan.)

Not Recommended

• if you’d rather not feel sorry for a rock star who cheated on his wife and then committed suicide in her kitchen.
• if you see no beauty in feeling morose or melancholy.
• if you already feel depressed and melancholy enough, and don’t need a movie to make you feel that way.
• if you really don’t care about photography, and think black and white is always inferior to color.