There's something gloriously technicolour about 'Control', the biopic of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, shot in monochrome but somehow capturing the full spectrum of sights and sounds from the 1970's music scene. It's blazing experience to be thrust into the life of Ian Curtis, and so good is this film, that you do actually feel as though you've been thrown head first into the very heart of it. Its vivid sense of time and place - and we're talking about Macclesfield here, for goodness sake - is matched by a straight forward story empty of Hollywood twists and turns but the fuller for it.
The film follows Curtis from his mid teens through to his eventual suicide at 23, on the brink of making it big in the States, but overwhelmed by a melancholy brought on by an increasingly painful life that feels out of 'control'. I've never owned a Joy Division album - the best I could do with that decade was to discover Abba - but that doesn't stop you from connecting not only with this film, but its music too. Sam Riley is someone I haven't seen before, though I think he was somewhere in '24 Hour Party People', but he pulls off what might be the performance of his life.
And wow, Samantha Morton, you are a revelation. Utterly convincing both as a shy pubescent teenager and as a young mother clutching at, and losing, her marriage to Curtis. It's quite an achievement for someone who's just turned 30.
So it looks like another film is going to get pushed out of the top 10 for the year. 'Control' is a British film to be proud of.
