Grant Gee's documentary perfectly captures desolate late 1970s Manchester and the exhilarating but tragic 28 months of Joy Division.
Interspersed with photographs and concert footage, bandmates Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris give unfiltered testimony of living in that moment.
Also featured are Tony Wilson, Pete Shelley, Genesis P-Orridge (all since deceased), Anton Corbijn, designer Peter Saville, Paul Morley and Annik Honoré, Ian Curtis' companion for his last 7 months.
Formed after seeing Sex Pistols in Manchester, Joy Division developed their own brooding sound to critical acclaim.
Driving home after a London gig, Curtis had a violent fit to the panic of the others; he was diagnosed as having severe epilepsy and, despite medication, he was prey to fits, putting in doubt his future with the band.
On the eve of their first US tour and their second album, and facing an imminant divorce, Ian Curtis killed himself.
Shelf or charity shop? Still playing in my plastic storage box. Although the film is inevitably forshadowed by Curtis' tragedy, Grant Gee's film is a marvellous chronicle of the post-Pistols world where anyone could start a band and hopefully change their destiny. It remains a film of ghosts: the now-gone trio who shaped Joy Division for the world - Wilson, producer Martin Hannett and manager Rob Gretton; and as Gee's camera slowly scans along the landmark locations of Joy Division's career, it is telling how many have since vanished. But the film belongs to the tragic trajectory of Ian Curtis, as the pressures on him on and offstage come ever closer. What is truly astonishing to the viewer - and evidently to his fellow-bandmates - is that they were unable to offer him any real help, their shamefaced excuse being that they were only lads in their early 20s but surely also at fault was Gretton who must have realised the pressure he was collapsing under. They also admit they only realised the clues in his lyrics after his death. Released in 2007 also was Anton Corbijn's biopic of Curtis CONTROL starring Sam Riley and Samantha Morton.
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