Austin Film Festival 2007 – Beyond The Pale/Control

BEYOND THE PALE (2007)

Directed by: Victor Fanucchi
Written by: Victor Fanucchi/Jeff Wise

Queen Of The Pale Moon is one of the greatest literary achievements of the 20th century and its author, JD Nochpynne, is the most acclaimed genius of the literary world.

Now, why haven’t you ever heard of the book or its author? Well, don’t be too surprised. I figure most of the Western world hasn’t heard of A Confederacy Of Dunces and they only know A Catcher In The Rye because a bunch of serial killers read it once. (Of course, they probably also read The Scarlett Letter. That book certainly made ME want to kill.)

There’s another good reason why you’ve never heard of this thousand page novel: it doesn’t exist. And reclusive author JD Nochpynne exists only in the minds of the subjects of this mockumentary that skewers the literary elite.

Sasha Plotzkin (Hayes Hargrove) is a grad student who has had a little trouble with his dissertation. Thirteen years of trouble, actually. He just can’t seem to get a grasp on what he wants to write about. All he knows is that it will be about Queen and Nochpynne. But he’s about to be thrown out of school if he doesn’t show some results soon.

He may, however, be able to squeak by if he can get his name on the list of presenters at a Nochpynne conference. Unfortunately, Professor Bullock (Tom Groenwald), the man who runs the conference, thinks he’s insane. (He is.) And what the hell’s up with this camera crew following him around? Are they with PBS? No? They’re independents?! Shit. Get ‘em outta here!

Writer/director Victor Fanucchi (who was a professor at the University of Michigan) had a great idea here…for a short. 75 minutes was just a bit too long to stretch this joke out. There was a LOT of funny stuff here (I especially like the fact that no one can agree on the pronunciation of Nochpynne…or even Bullock), but too many dead spots in between to justify the length. And Hargrove may have been brilliant, but Sasha was so annoying that I was sick of seeing him after about 15 minutes. I would rather have spent more time with Bullock than with Sasha.

It wasn’t really a bad film. It was just far too long for its subject to allow.

CONTROL (2007)

Directed by: Anton Corbijn
Written by: Matt Greenhalgh
Based on book by: Deborah Curtis

The music of Joy Division is meant to be listened to in stark, high-contrast black and white. And if you know what I’m talking about, you know Joy Division. They were not a happy band. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Control (which is shot in beautifully stark, high-contrast black and white) is the story of Ian Curtis, Joy Division’s doomed lead singer/songwriter. It was his pain that showed through every lyric on every record. Some of that pain came from his epilepsy and all of the drugs that he was put on by his doctors. But most of it was from the fact that he married far too young and fell in love with another woman on the road. He loved both women, so he couldn’t hurt either of them. Eventually, it would kill him.

Writer Matt Greenhalgh and director Anton Corbijn (rock photographer and video director–this is his first movie) have taken a route that shows Curtis (played perfectly by Sam Riley) in a slightly different light. They show him as a normal guy (maybe a bit sullen and dark, but no more than a normal teenager) with normal problems. He just didn’t know how to handle them because he was never allowed to mature normally. He married Deborah (Samantha Morton) before he had even left his teens. Then, not much later, he was famous. And a father. And, somehow, not rich.

Listening to their two albums, Unknown Pleasures and, especially, Closer, you know that the man who wrote the music is going to burn out before he fades away. And Riley’s performance is just as good. You know from the first scene where he ignores a couple of kids asking him to kick their ball back that things are not going to turn out well for this guy. But Riley makes you want to save him. He makes you wish that Deborah was strong enough to save him. He looks like a cross between Brendan Frazer and Leo DiCaprio (which makes him better looking than the real Ian) and probably has more vulnerability than both of them ever had. His voice isn’t dead on, but it’s good enough to pass for Ian.

Speaking of the voice, the actors who play the rest of the band are really playing the songs. Originally, they were going to mime playing, but all of them took lessons and learned the songs. So only “Love Will Tear Us Apart” is actually played by Joy Division. (And New Order, the band that rose from the ashes of Joy Division, did the score.)

Oh, yeah. And “Shadowplay” during the credits was performed by The Killers. Crazy, huh?

The only problem the movie has is that it may not find much of an audience. Joy Division is popular and influential, but they only had one real hit. They were more popular in England. (Ian killed himself in 1980, just before they broke over here.) Your average movie-goer isn’t going to know who the hell they were. Even if you say New Order, they’ll look at you kind of funny. “Why would I want to see a movie about a cheesy 80s band?”

Of course, we all know. Joy Division is anything but cheesy. (And they were barely an 80s band.) And I, for one, am glad that this movie was made. And I’m glad that the studio gave the go-ahead to shoot it in black and white. Maybe this will find an audience and it will bring Joy Division to the masses.

That being said, as I was walking into the theatre, I noticed that just about all of the people waiting to buy tickets were black-clad teenagers. (One was even wearing an Interpol shirt. Classy.) Maybe they’ve already reached a new audience.

I do have one question, though: with all of these awesome music bio-pics coming out…when does the Lennon bio-pic come out?

The folks at the Paramount seemed to know that Joy Division fans tend to be a bit maudlin. So, they tried to counter-act it. I walked into the theatre to the sweet strains of…Wings? And it wasn’t even a good Wings album. It was freakin’ Wild Life!

I have a feeling that they had no clue what they were doing. There was no irony going on there. Just random cluelessness.

Sigh.

(Bit of in-joke humor. Riley played Mark E. Smith, lead singer of The Fall, in a cut scene in the rather awesome 24 Hour Party People. (I highly recommend that movie to anyone interested in 80s British music and Factory Records.) In Control, when Ian has a seizure on stage and is pulled off, their manager asks him how he is. He says that he’s ok. The manager says, “Could be worse. You could be the lead singer of The Fall.”)