Transmission

Control - Superb! - Go and see it, especially if you are a kid of the 70's.

Filmed in grainy black and white - the details of the early 70's through to 1980 were immaculate. Spotted - light shades and kitchen pans that I had grown up with. The dress material could so easily be curtains from my pre adolescent bedroom. The rooms so bare - no plastic electronic items then - just pure large wooden record players. Funny too now that all films will be dated by the amount of smoking seen on screen. The few musical scenes shot in smoke filled pubs. -Today for a film to be realistic it will have to fore go such props. Was it a dark 2 hours & 1 min? Well apart from the monochrome choice of film there was enough 'northern' humour to make the piece at once amusing and yet at the other end of the scale totally tragic.

Even though you know the ending the story is told in such a simple way - not too much focus on the band practicing - as if they were always a finished and ready to perform band. The reality of his epilepsy and emotional turmoil. What really came across for me was the fact he was just a down to earth kind of bloke with a good heart and a sense of right and wrong. Trapped by his circumstance and fame. Trapped by the words in his head. By the time 'Atmosphere' was playing to the smoke drifting from the crematorium there was a certain sense of freedom and release about his death.


So the tube home - the 4 Joy Division songs I have on my MP3 on loop. Yes I feel a sorrow for the loss of a talent - I also feel immense lightness at the thought that the words going through his head became so iconic to a generation and that today - 27 years the words still hold true even on a tube with earphones. It wasn't all meant to be beautiful and like life it wasn't. Would it have been different if he had lived? Well he would have been 50 this year - what would his take on the world have been now? It's even more confusing and demanding than it was back then. And his loss opened the door for another iconic band. New Order. You know the rest.

Thank you to PC Anon for accompanying me - good to go to the cinema and watch as another's fingers tapped to the music. Good to be in the West End for a change - the Curzon Soho was certainly a change from the Odeon Wimbledon! People huh - always a good source of conversation! Good to catch up - an ad well answered huh!!