Joy Division - Under Review (dir. Christian Davies)

I spent the evening trying to make my website (and not getting very far) and and watching this documentary about Joy Division. It was very bad. It was like one of those cheap TV countdown programmes where they get a bunch of media journalists yacking on well past the point of saying anything interesting cause it's the least expensive programme filler. This film was such poor quality but even without a big budget they could have been creative with the content they had. It was one of the most bland things I've seen. There was a handful of talking heads, who were to be fair Joy Division fans, but said nothing notable, a miniscule amount of 'rare' footage, an excessive amount of footage from the film 24hour Party People, a very dull narration and some still shots of the band and their two album covers. There was mention of a J.G.Ballard book that became the title of a Joy Division song, so they showed the cover of this book while the narrator droned on, but weirdly they also floated up on the screen all the covers of Ballards novels! There was no interviews with the band members or his family. I would have been just as well to look up the Wikipedia entry. The film Control directed by Anton Corbijn, about Ian Curtis, the band, his relationships and his suicide, was so much more intense and insightful. Anyway, below is a short clip from Control.