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It's been one of the more pleasant coincidences of the Toronto International Film Festival this year that there's not one, but two separate films focusing on the times and musical legacy of Manchester's Joy Division. Anton Corbijn's Control is a bio-pic about the band's late singer, Ian Curtis; I had the chance to see it in May at Cannes. The other film -- simply titled Joy Division -- is a documentary take on the band's genesis and influence, their victories and struggles. Directed by Grant Gee (Radiohead: Meeting People is Easy,) Joy Division may not be as immediately striking as Corbjin's film -- with its stark-yet-warm black-and-white photography and Sam Riley's performance as Curtis -- but it's just as compelling.

Formed in the industrial city of Manchester, Joy Division marked a unique turning point in popular music: Where punk turned to post-punk, where anger was replaced by angst. Formed by Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Ian Curtis, Joy Division released only two full-length albums before Curtis's suicide; at the same time, tragedy isn't the only thing that made Joy Division's short discography a legend.

Indeed, Gee's demonstration of that legend is a great demonstration of his technique here -- forming a collage of ephemera and seemingly-random information that forms an easy-to-read big picture. To illustrate just how many bands have covered Joy Division's seminal single 'Love Will Tear Us Apart," we're shown ... an iTunes search screen. And while you'd think that simple blunt instrument of a visual may seem inelegant or crude, it instead works perfectly -- not only proving Joy Division's place in the hearts of their admirers but also in an instant reminding us how completely the music business has changed since the days of hand-crafted 7-inch single sleeves and cut-and-paste artwork -- which, thanks to Gee's fractured-yet-focused technique, we also see.

After decades of acclaimed rock-and-roll photography and music videos, it's not surprising that Anton Corbjin's first feature film is about a musician; what is surprising is how well-crafted, sympathetic and good Control ultimately is. Telling the life story of Ian Curtis (Sam Riley), the lead singer of Joy Division, Control hits all the notes that come as part and parcel of the musician's biographical film -- the dream, the rise, the fall -- but it also manages to find beauty and sadness in a story where we know the sad finale.

Control begins in 1973, as the young Ian Curtis lives among the council flats of Macclesfield, England -- listening to David Bowie, scrounging the occasional pill to pop, practicing applying eyeliner while wearing his sister's fun fur jacket. Something's out there -- a sense that pop culture has a place for the placeless -- and Curtis wants in. After a now-legendary Manchester Sex Pistols gig (where, as shown in the similarly-set but far breezier 24 Hour Party People, everyone in the small crowd apparently went out and started a band afterwards), Curtis runs into a group of three friends struggling to start a band -- "We'd be a lot less shite if we could find a singer who could actually sing." Curtis can't play a note on a guitar, but he's got the soul of a poet and -- just as importantly - the cheekbones of a fashion advert model, and soon Joy Division are playing local gigs that springboard them to international attention.

When I first heard celebrated music video director Anton Corbijn was directing an Ian Curtis biopic, I was sure that it would meet the expectations of Joy Division fans everywhere. If anything, it would at least be a visual stunner. Well, now the film, which is titled Control, has made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, and it is currently a very hot topic. Variety calls it, "a riveting, visually arresting portrait of a soul in torment." The Telegraph also praises the black and white visuals and says the film is worth watching, comparing it to British kitchen-sink dramas of the 1950s. However, The Hollywood Reporter, by contrast, predicts that the film will not follow in the success of the classic kitchen-sink films and says the film, "fails to make the case for its fallen star."

Despite the Reporter's take, though, the film is apparently generating a lot of buzz and mostly critical acclaim at the festival, with much of the talk focused on the star-making performance by Sam Riley, who portrays Curtis. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who gives Control a four-star rating, says Riley is "superb"; The Telegraph's word of choice is "extraordinary"; Variety's Russell Edwards calls the performance "a winner". Also in agreement are the former members of Joy Division, who regrouped as New Order (with new recruit Gillian Gilbert) following Curtis' 1980 suicide. Even Peter Hook, who previously had issues with Corbijn regarding the film's soundtrack, seems to be a fan. According to Corbijn, though, neither Curtis' widow, Deborah Curtis, who wrote the source material for the film, nor his girlfriend, Annik Honoré are very happy with Control.

The biopic doesn't yet have a distribution deal for the States, but thanks to its popularity at Cannes, there will hopefully be a deal made soon. It is definite that the film won't perform as well in America as in the UK, but there are plenty of us Joy Division fans here that one of the major U.S. companies should see the film as a worthy acquisition. In the meantime, while you wait for a chance to see the film yourself, check out James Rocchi's review of Control for Cinematical, to be posted shortly.