JOY DIVISION/THE REEL STORY

Get ready. That band is back. And music fan Octavia Morris is happy to see them, despite some initial doubts.

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Morris writes: How many times have you heard the phrase "On 4th June1976, four young men from ruined, post-industrial Manchester went to see a Sex Pistols show at the Lesser Free Trade Hall and …."?

You know how it goes on, so you could be forgiven for not screaming for Joy (Division)! at the announcement of yet another 'definitive' documentary covering their story, as well as that of Factory Record's.

But while Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People and Anton Corbijn’s recent Ian Curtis biopic Control take a comic and indulgent approach respectively, this new documentary by Grant Gee can be placed in something of a middle ground, an (almost) no-frills approach to tell the story as it is, without distortion through fanciful or unfounded biographical spin.

Of course, the film is not gimmick free, with some parts verging on the amateur and even tacky.

But it’s not for nothing that so much has been written and broadcast about Joy Division over the years: their legacy is an exceptional one, built on the irresistible legend of transcendence across cultural and economic barriers, that marked an historical turning point.

Gee (maker of Grammy-nominated Radiohead documentary Meeting People is Easy) has worked hard to emphasise the grit and depression of post-industrial Manchester, where others have perhaps unjustly glamourised it.

So it comes as no surprise then, when he says "apart from filmmaking, the only work I ever enjoyed was studying urban geography: the sense of place... it was natural for me to conceive the project in terms of beauty, loss and the city."

Other elements to the film’s credit are decent unseen live footage, and participation from the surviving band members - who became New Order after Ian Curtis’ suicide in 1980 (producer Tom Atencio has represented the three in the USA for close to 20 years).

Stephen Morris, Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner provide poignant and comic anecdotes of Ian’s epilepsy, his suicide, their guilt ("We never listened, never realised what he was writing about"), of Martin Hannett’s eccentric production style ("Now let’s have that again but a bit more cocktail party", or "a bit more yellow!"), their taking the piss out of Ian and his femme fatale mistress Annik Honoré ("Oh she was very sophisticated to people in Macclesfield riding pigs – for entertainment for fuck’s sake! And she was a journalist from Belgium, working in the fucking embassy!").

Annik also appears in the film, alongside other characters such as Throbbing Gristle musician Genesis P.Orridge, music journo Paul Morley, iconic graphic artist Peter Saville, and Tony Wilson, though somewhat refreshingly he is given a lesser prominence.

All in all, if you’re a sucker for sensationalism you might find Joy Division somewhat unsatisfying, but if you have the patience, then Gee’s take is tidy, succinct and well worth a watch.

Joy Division opens in key UK cities on Friday, May 2, 2008.

Copyright Octavia Morris.

Posted April 29th, 2008.