Grant Gee's eponymous Joy Division documentary first surfaced at TIFF in 2007 as an unofficial companion piece to Control, Anton Corbijn's stylized kitchen-sink biopic on the career and love life of Ian Curtis. Though it went some distance in verifying events depicted artfully in Corbijn's dramatization, it¹s sure to be the last word in Joy Division mythology — though it hardly deals in mythology at all.

Gee, known previously for his Radiohead tour film Meeting People is Easy, is joined by noted rock scribe Jon Savage in presenting a tidy and stark history of the post-punk band's brief career from the perspective of its players, associates (including the late Tony Wilson and Curtis' paramour Annik Honoré) and onlookers, with the city of Manchester treated as a figure among those. With no filmed interview footage of Curtis to mine — though there are some excellent and oft-seen TV performances — Gee trawls through notebooks and audiotapes to the extent where Curtis' ghost inhabits the film as much as it does Joy Division's now-legendary albums Unknown Pleasures and Closer. (A tape of the singer speaking under hypnosis, and seemingly from a past life, to guitarist Bernard Sumner is downright chilling.)

There is humour alongside heartbreak, and Gee's procession of curio is presented stylishly but never intrusively. Joy Division peeks behind some very heavy, dark curtains to reveal a vivid and lively history.