Joy Division (2006)

One of my all time favorites.

Memorable, crazy movie

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I watched this mini-epic in a hotel in Abu Dhabi four years ago. I recently picked it up on DVD as I fancied watching again to see if it was as powerful as I remembered; it was! I see from wiki the story was inspired by the book "Berlin the Downfall 1945" by Antony Beevor (to some extent at least) which, although the film is not set in Berlin but in Silesia, does make a lot of sense. I applaud the way the film shows the destruction, defeat, reconstruction, then re-emergence of identity, of a nation – through the transformation of a teenage boy into adult life. Aside from the frighteningly realistic combat, the horrific gang-rapes, and the depiction of an all-colourful swinging sixties London – a major feature that struck me on my second viewing was that the success of Thomas' journey (the journey of the German nation, personified as a sensitive male) is only made possible by his involvement with females. This I found interesting and quite unusual. Melanie (his first true love) sacrifices herself so that he may live another day; Astrid (the refugee nurse) gets him out of the front-lines and instructs him to toughen up; Tanya (the Russian tank-girl) takes him from the gutter of the occupied zone to a military school in Russia; Stephanie (the East-German spy) informs the KGB that he has defected – the most complex of all his female 'helpers'; and Yvonne (the black Mod girl) gives him affectionate love and inspires him to develop. All in all, extremely deep and layered material and much more contextual than most war-spy films. It made me wonder if it had originally been written as a novel.

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.

In 1944, the fourteen years old teenager Thomas (Tom Schilling) is convoked to fight in the German Army. He survives, but his town is destroyed, his family dies in a bombing and his sweetheart Melanie (Bernadette Heerwagen) is raped and murdered by the Russian Army. A Commissar brings the orphan Thomas to Soviet Union, and he is sent to the military school. Years later, Thomas (Ed Stoppard) becomes an agent of KGB and in 1962, during the Cold War, he is assigned to work in London. Living with ghosts from the past in constant fear and paranoia, he meets the black Londoner Yvonne (Michelle Gayle), who gives him the strength of joy."Joy Division" is a movie with an engaging and very cruel drama of war, and a confused spy story in times of Cold War. If the story was limited to the impressive situation of the survivors of the Russian invasion, it would be excellent. But the part of espionage never works and is a complete mess. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Regras da Guerra" ("Rules of the War")