CINEMA: Joy Division

After the semi-documentary feel of Joy Division movie Control, you might feel there is no need for a proper documentary about the group, but this is something of a delight; insightful, eloquent and incredibly entertaining.

Directed and filmed by Grant Gee, a qualified geography teacher, it takes as its starting point the city of Manchester where the members of the band lived and played and where Tony Wilson signed them to Factory Records. In fact, the opening sequence of Wilson talking about Manchester over a montage of images of the city is one of the best pieces of documentary making you will probably ever see. Wilson describes how the city had fallen from its once proud industrial position into squalor and decay, but was on the point of a rebirth, a rebirth that saw an explosion of creativity on all fronts, but especially within the sphere of music.

There are also some very entertaining contributions from surviving band members Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris and grainy archive footage of early gigs with charismatic frontman Ian Curtis dancing his strange robotic dance. If you’re a fan then this is a must see.       Dee Pilgrim