Joy Division

In June 4, 1976 at a Sex Pistols show in Manchester, Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook decide to form a group. Ian Curtis joins the band and drummer Stephen Morris answers their ad. They named their punk band Joy Division from its Nazi origins. Local TV personality Tony Wilson champions the group and DJ Rob Gretton starts managing the band.

The great thing about this documentary is the sense of time and place and the rundown depressing industrial city of Manchester. It has the cooperation of all the main people. It takes the band's progression chronologically. For fans of the band, this is a joy to relive the times. It's mostly about the music. Ian's wife Deborah gives some text inserts. She's the main missing part. She could have provided more personal insights into Ian's psyche. This one sees his struggles more from the outside and through his music. The bandmates are mostly clueless or maybe they're just willfully ignorant. It's compelling how they deal with the shock of it all.

Obviously, this is filtered somewhat through the views of those who appear (and thus arguable how much is "true"), but in my view it's one of the best music documentaries I've ever seen, and very much reminded me why the band were so interesting at the time. I had a cassette with Unknown Pleasures on one side and Closer on the other, and played little else for a while - so well did it capture the mood of the times.

This film is very well put-together, making the best of the limited original source material, interspersed with well-lit interviews and extracts from Deborah's excellent book. Sad though to see how many others have died even since the making of this.

Post-punk band Joy Division were only around for a very short time but left a massive impression and would become one of the most influential bands of their time. They only recorded a couple of albums - 'Unknown Pleasures' and 'Closer' – but both would immediately be afforded classic status. In recent years there has been quite a lot of interest in them and the Manchester music scene that spawned them which has resulted in a couple of excellent films, 24 Hour Party People (2002) and Control (2007). The latter of which focused specifically on the late Ian Curtis, singer in the group. He was a famously troubled individual who was afflicted with severe epilepsy. His dark, highly personal lyrics went some way in characterising the Joy Division sound. Far from a typical rock character, he worked in the civil service helping the disabled find work. He killed himself in 1980 on the eve of Joy Division's first North American tour, he was 23. While this film is not all about Curtis and is more about the band in general, his presence in their story remains colossal and ingrained.

The story is significantly about the setting as well. Industrialised Manchester was a pretty bleak place back in the 70's and it's from this backdrop that the band emerges. There wasn't a great deal of hope for a lot of young people at this time and their frustrations were vocalised in the punk rock scene. An early Sex Pistols gig in the Manchester Free Trade Hall proving to be a massively influential event which encouraged the members of the future Joy Division that they could form a group and do a similar thing. By the time the band got going, the restrictive nature of pure punk rock had meant that in order to take its ethos forward a new music which retained its attitude but expanded its musical palette had to be devised. Joy Division were one of the key early innovators in what would go on to be known as post-punk. The documentary really focuses solely on Joy Division themselves and not this wider, very original music scene which ultimately led to alternative rock.

The film is based around the recollections of the three surviving members Bernard Summer, Stephen Morris and Peter Hook. It also has contributions from many others involved directly in the story such as Factory Records founder Tony Wilson, while it looks back on the significant work of others no longer with us like producer Martin Hannett. Curtis's lover Annik Honoré appears but his wife Deborah does not; there is still some understandable bad feeling from the latter about how she and her child were treated specifically in relation to Curtis's relationship with Honoré. Because of the lack of media outlets at the time and the very underground nature of the band there really is a paucity of visual material of them, aside from some bootleg footage and some television appearances, in addition there is a strange taped audio conversation of Curtis while under hypnosis. But the film-makers do make the film visually interesting enough for you not to really notice this very much, with much footage of Manchester at the time which almost feels like it is from another world now. There are also many experts who offer ideas about high concepts that they believed the band were aiming for with their music. While these sound good, they are a common trait of music journalism in general where everything is over-analysed. The truth comes out more from the mouths of the band themselves where we learn that Hook's distinctive high pitched bass style was devised purely because it was easier for him to hear over the top of the rest of the group during band practice and we also learn that the rest of the group really paid very little attention to the actual content of Curtis' lyrics at all. Like most great music it was created by chance chemistry between individuals and there wasn't much more to it than that. All-in-all, an informative documentary which illustrates how significant a band Joy Division was.

The only shortcoming perhaps of this documentary, is that it didn't range too far beyond the context of the group and into the rest of the music scene at the time. However that is a valid choice for the film-maker. There was a lot of ground to cover, and fans will appreciate the depth and attention paid to the music and live footage.

The film zeros in on the dynamic formation and growth of this seminal band, and particularly the increasing struggles of fated lead-singer, Ian Curtis. This was handled with surprising candor and integrity, no small accomplishment.

Those with only a basic knowledge of the role Joy Division played in the renewal of both the post-punk music scene and Manchester will find this an informative documentary. In addition to retrospectives by all remaining band members, a well-balanced range of contributers comment on everything from the scene, to music production and cover art design, to the cultural influences behind the band's unique style.

Grant Gee's inventive and honest documentary about Joy Division is not just a fine example of non-fiction film-making, but of film-making, full stop.

After the success of "Control", "Joy Division" has a new lease of interest behind it. It is, therefore, very good news to report that the film is not only interesting and informative, but also very effective. It is intelligent, though never ponderous. It is artistic, but never loses sight of its purpose.

The central interest of the film is not so much the eponymous band but the city of Manchester and the time and place which Joy Division found themselves in. Its focus here might tend to the ludicrous at points, but this is balanced by the human stories playing out in front of the northern backdrop.

There is very little complaint to be levelled at this film. It is not a masterpiece or extraordinary, but it is an excellent slice of cinema, knowledge and storytelling.