Explaining The Suicide Of Ian Curtis

Anyone familiar with Joy Division's music surely has come away from it with a sense of alienation, isolation, and pressure. Singer Ian Curtis once described the sound of Joy Division as the death of youthful innocence. 'Control'; the directorial debut for long-time photographer and music video director, Anton Corbijn; portrays Curtis from the time he met his wife Deborah until his suicide seven years later. Fans of Joy Division's music may be disappointed here, as there is little insight into what drove the foursome to their pioneering sound. Instead, the film is more an attempt to explain the death of Curtis's own innocence, which surely led to his death at a very young 23.
Newcomer Sam Riley is the film's godsend. He has Curtis's look, body type, and doomed voice - with which he sings the songs himself. He very purely shows us Curtis as an alienated young man who wanted it all, got it, and couldn't fulfill all the expectations that came with them. He felt trapped in his marriage, pressured in his band, unable to let go of his mistress, and terrified by his epilepsy. All this was made worse by the extreme lows that could be brought on by the medication he took for it, which often made him a very differrent person. Having brought much of it on himself, Riley's Curtis is no longer innocent. Onstage, he perfectly nails the iconic singer. The eye-rolling facial contortions; the stepping in place while grabbing the microphone stand as if for dear life; and his legendary arm-spinning, contortionistic dancing. Offstage he also captures Curtis's drastic lows with the same autheticity. His tears and seizures very accutely paint a broken man.
Corbijn's attention to detail is astonishing. The shit-talking, the backstage rooms, the band's onstage posture and clothes, the biting sarcasm, and the hilariously pissy manager (masterfully played by Toby Kebbell). He shoots 'Control' in stark black and white - which is just as bleakly beautiful as the band's sound; and fills the background with the music that fueled the band's imagination: Bowie, Roxy Music, and The Velvet Underground.
Again, die-hards may be put off by the decision to focus more on Curtis and less on what made the band so unique. There are no song writing scenes, no real outside praise, and little focus on landmark songs and albums. Riley does provide the occasional voice-over narration that helps pin the words to the man. When his marriage seemed truly doomed, we hear him recite the first lines of 'Twenty Four Hours': "So this is permanence. Love's shattered pride. What once was innocence, turned on its side". And for the film's opening shot, we see Riley sitting on the floor of a darkened bedroom as his voice-over reads Curtis's quintessential cry of existential doom: "Existence, well what does it matter? I'll exist on the best terms I can. The past is now part of my future. The present is well out of hand."