Loving Joy Division

One of my favourite bands of all-time has to be Joy Division. Their music evokes a time and place in my life. Of course we had all heard Love Will Tear Us Apart when we were teenagers, and I found it to be such a melancholy love song, that I loved it. However, it wasn't until I was in my mid-20' s that I really discovered the music of Joy Division. I was in grad school in Montreal, doing a project with Jennifer and Joy Division's greatest hits album was our soundtrack. I went out the next day and bought this soundtrack, and now every time I hear it, I think of walking along Ave Des Pins returning from the Montreal General Hospital. It was a crisp March day, with spring in the air. Perfect walking music.

This year's TIFF seems to be the year of Joy Division. There is both a feature film, Control, and a documentary of the band. I saw the former, but want to see the latter (the showtime didn't fit my schedule for this year's festival). I have been a fan of Anton Corbijn for years (his photography and videos for Depeche Mode are so atmospheric), so I was very excited that he helmed this picture about Ian Curtis. It was brilliant. Atmospheric, black and white, and evocative of the time and place of late 1970's Northern England. I was transported back to my own memories of Joy Division with each and every performance (performed with assuredness by the actors in the film). Sam Riley was amazing as Ian Curtis. It helped that he looked and sounded eerily like Curtis. Brilliant.