When Control was inked in for the Melbourne International Film Festival, it seemed a decent enough excuse to reconvene the Melbourne Order, a gathering so exclusive we had to turn away Australia's number one New Order fan Chris Z.
So the premiere session was tonight and present from the MO were CTB and his long-suffering missus, yours truly and about 42 Ian Pillars - we weren't quite sure which nose-picking goth was him. Surprisingly enough, the house was packed and knowledgeable, perhaps Joy Division's back in vogue now that the kids are sporting skinny ties and Chuck Taylors again.
The flick itself is decent. Expertly crafted - we all know Corbijn frames a mean monochrome - and he splices in lots of lingering arty shots and the 70's Manc milieu is as stark and depressive as you'd imagine. Credit to the actors, Sam Reilly is as charismatic as has been reported and Sam Morton believable as the cruelled Mrs Curtis (although to be nitpicky she looked a touch too old). Toby Kebbell's caricature of Rob Gretton injects much-needed laughs into what are often grim proceedings. The rest of the band and the supporting characters we all know and love are impressively portrayed, although on several occasions you suspect that the real events probably weren't nearly as exciting as legend has it.
Expect some of you will be slightly disappointed at the lack of Joy Divisionness of it all. I know we were. The focus of the film is Ian and Deborah's relationship and how it fractures when Annik arrives. You only get a few tastes of all that rich JD folklore, but this is Ian's story after all. And he is hard to like at times, tortured anti-hero genius or not. Fortunately the despair of his one-way ticket to the ceiling is broken up with some rewarding JD minutiae for the fans. The genesis of the 'dead fly dance' is clever and it's fun watching Hooky fire up at the Derby Hall riot. Thought there may have been some Jim Morrison references, wasn't Ian meant to idolise him? He seemed to model himself more on David Bowie early.
For you New Order completists, there's little new material to be mined from the film. Fortunately what was there sounded cool, even if it was only incidental music. We counted only 3 or 4 instrumentals we couldn't place, the rest of the soundtrack is all Bowie, Iggy, Buzzcocks, Kraftwerk, etc, and the JD songs played live by the cast. It'll be interesting to see whether they do release a soundtrack containing the actual NO incidental pieces, ala Salvation.
Some may recall Hooky saying how surreal it was when the Cannes crowd gave it a round of applause as the closing credits rolled and indeed the same occurred in Melbourne. Suspect Control is going to be favourably-received critically, even if no one goes to see it. But all this mattered little to the Melbourne Order as they trudged off into the winter's night, CTB dutifully informing us how they'd bungled the drum patterns on Candidate ...
:\pimp3:
That vinyl EP's got the definitive version of SUBCULTURE.Pure class.
...well done Ron, a good find indeed this Electronic vinyl, a rare LP...now i'm jealous that you found this pretty crap but rare piece of vinyl 
