Joy Division (2006)

There are two films wrapped up in this one. The first could have been a powerful character study of the realities of the Soviet advance through Germany. It could have shown how the excitement of nationalism gave way to the harsh reality of war with friends lost and lives destroyed.The second, a sub-standard cold war spy thriller, could've been left as a thirty minute radio play judging from the poor voice-over narration that was going on.The acting from the segments set in the 1960s is poor at best and littered with third-rate clichés around torture, disaffected communists and secret codes. To make matters worse an interracial love story is thrown in and handled with all the style of a wet lettuce.In the 1940s segments there's some reasonable acting going which suffers from not enough time to develop the characters and rather bland lighting and filming. There isn't a sense of grittiness or realism to help build the story.Overall a wasted opportunity.

Perhaps I should have been warned by the banner across the top of the box 'THE PAST IS A PLACE YOU CANNOT ESCAPE' (so profound - not) and the fact that the only praise longer than one word they have is from something called Boys Toys, who proclaim 'SEARING WARTIME SET-PIECES'. The latter at least is true.Here's an edited synopsis: 'In the last days of World War II, a teenager is forced into battle against the advancing Red Army ... he is captured by the Russians and disappears behind the Iron Curtain ... 17 years later, he is recruited ... and sent on a mission by the KGB to London'.Bought this because Tom Schilling was in it but have to agree with the other reviewers - his bits are excellent, the German back story is the only watchable part, mostly because of his natural, effortless, sympathetic performance and far more credible and moving than the 60s spy episodes. They should have expanded this to movie length and completely cut the 60s section.This film was written and directed by Reg Traviss. There's a reason this guy's not a household name and this movie could be it. First, he's cast Ed Stoppard (no relation to Tom or Miriam - oh wait, yes, he's their son; nothing like getting a part on merit, and this is nothing like it). His lines are delivered in an affectless tone, reminiscent of Keira Knightley at the wooden beginning of her career, with one of those irritating schizophrenic accents British people adopt to please Americans, often heard in US teen drama, such as Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill; for the first half of a sentence, they sound as if they're in Downton, for the second half, they sound like they're in EastEnders, i.e. posh then common. No one in England really talks like this. And whereas everything Tom Schilling does is finely nuanced; Ed Stoppard's a blunt instrument and he doesn't have the charisma to carry a weak storyline. It's not entirely his fault as he doesn't have much to work with.Then, if he started as German, then went to live in Russia, why doesn't he speak English with a foreign accent? It has to be pointed out that Tom Schilling is way more convincing in a second language than Ed is in his first. It would have made more sense (since Schilling was playing 10 years younger than his actual age), to age him a mere 7 years and allow him to play the older version too. At least there would have been a consistency as far as accents are concerned.The story and script are dire. The 60s spy plot is stultifying (consisting of Ed waiting on a succession of benches to rendezvous with other spies), though they try to spice it up by adding Michelle Gayle (not really known for her acting and this isn't going to help) as a supremely uninteresting love interest. They both like art so they fall in love. It's as bland and as undeveloped as that but no doubt Reg thought it represented a real meeting of minds.There's a very irritating cameo from Bernard Hill as a disaffected Communist who spouts tripe like: 'Are we the leaders? Or are we the led? Or are we neither?' which must pass for deep in Reg Traviss's world and Ed's too as he responds 'It's a lot to think about'. No, it ain't. Who cares? Worse than all this though is the voice-over, which is another attempt to be deep, with Ed delivering such pearls of wisdom as 'strength through experience to again become strong'. Hmm. This doesn't mean anything. Or 'the unstoppable force of nature swept through my heart'. Neither does this. But Reg is fond of 'unstoppable force'; it crops up more than once.Don't go thinking this has anything much to do with either the Joy Division of the Nazis or the band of the late 70s. If only.My final verdict is that there's just about enough Tom Schilling to warrant any fan of his watching this movie.

A movie that captures both the brutality and the futility of war wonderfully well, some scenes which are as good as any I have ever seen from any movie depicting that era. A first class debut film from a British Director we will no doubt be hearing a lot more of in the coming years.Some of the action shots and fighting amidst the rubble of a Berlin in ruins reminded me of 'Saving Private Ryan' in that the director managed to bring the viewer right into the action. Tremendous stuff. It was without a doubt, for me, the most interesting and best part of the film, I wanted more.As a writer with a vivid imagination and and overwhelming desire to produce stories within a story I was just a little disappointed in the ending, I wanted the film to go on longer and give me more.... Surely a good sign? I wanted more romance too, perhaps a final twist. Nevertheless a movie well worth watching. I feel that the best is yet to come from the director Reg Traviss, if someone were to give him a good WWII story I would be first in the queue at the cinema.

I didn't expect much when I rented this relatively low budget English language WW2 flick set on the Eastern Front – not a great start and up against greats like "Cross of Iron" and "Enemy at the Gate" not to mention US and German productions such as "Downfall" and "Saving Private Ryan", but I couldn't resist the T-34 tanks which adorn the DVD sleeve design. However, I was pleasantly taken aback. "Joy Division" is IMO European cinema at its best and shows that we Brits can make powerful, thought provoking drama too.SPOILERS – the film is the biopic of protagonist Thomas, who starts off as a Hitler Youth troop in the last months of WW2 and ends up as a Soviet spy in the Cold War. The story unravels in flash-back and flash-forward between 1945 to 1962 and bookended with a third contemporary setting in 1970s South America where he has fled (like so many other ex-Nazis, ex-Soviets), and is bound by Thomas' inner-struggle not only to re-discover his lost identity, but to come to terms with the trauma of his lost love.In keeping with so many other cinematic epics, "Joy Division" is at times terribly depressing yet never slow in pace and the bursts of wartime action and moments of innocent tenderness keep you glued to the screen. The WW2 segments are by far the more enthralling of the film but rely on the dialogue heavy Cold War segments to make sense of the futility of war and it's dreadful after affects, which for me was the underlying point of the movie.The film's emotional core comes with Thomas' doomed romance with Melanie. The two 15 year old lovers spend their time flirting at Hitler Youth rallies but as they begin to develop something much deeper the Red Army invade eastern Germany and Thomas is thrust into hopeless battle as one of the defenders of the crumbling Reich. No brutality is spared as the story takes one dark turn after another. As columns of refugees run westwards for their lives, Thomas goes up against fleets of Russian tanks in battle scenes nothing short of "Saving Private Ryan", while Melanie is captured twice and violently gang-raped by dozens of Soviet troops each time. Surviving the onslaught and finally reunited as the war comes to an end, Thomas is witness to Melanie's third gang-rape and henceforth the breaking point of the young lad's life.Reflecting on his wartime experiences while caught up in a Kafkaesque Cold-War conspiracy in 1960s Moscow and London, Thomas the KGB agent is forced to re-explore himself and eventually he re-defines his lines of loyalty. The film has a surprisingly happy end of sorts and uniquely combines war drama, action, and political thriller.