Joy Division (2006 film)

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Joy Division
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Directed by	Reg Traviss
Produced by	Laszlo Sipos Stefan Raiser Felix Zackor Ildiko Kemeny Kim Leggatt
Starring	Tom Schilling Ed Stoppard Bernadette Heerwagen Bernard Hill Michelle Gayle Ram John Holder
Cinematography	Bryan Loftus BSC
Release date(s)	2006
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
IMDb profile

Joy Division is a 2006 film which follows a German citizen, beginning with his teenage years in Germany during World War 2, followed by his induction into the KGB and time as a spy in Britain during the 1960s.

This espionage thriller by director Reg Traviss concerns the memories of a man whose life and country has been blighted by war; and who has lives subsequently with the uncertainty and loss that ravaged so many countries after World War Two.

Ed Stoppard plays Thomas, a German who narrates his life from the formative years of his adolescence when his country was invaded by the Russians and he fought unsuccessfully as one of Hitler's Joy Division youth troops; through his subsequent years in the early sixties working as a spy for the Russians during the Cold War. How he came to turn his back on his own country and work for the people who had destroyed his early life forms the interesting and original core of the character's story, which is mostly revealed in flashbacks as we see the events of two time frames unfold. Slowly, as more of his history is revealed, we come to understand how Thomas was led to a dangerous and double life on both sides of the infamous iron curtain.

The plot is fairly straightforward, as Thomas is assigned to kill operatives the KGB no longer trusts; or as his younger self, reacts to the harrowing events that are inflicted around him as he develops from victim to soldier, then back to victim again at the hands of the Russians. As with all good espionage, characters' real identities and motives are often more difficult to understand or anticipate, and for much of the time Thomas has very little sense of identity, and feels happiest and most himself when leading a pretend life with Yvonne (played by Michelle Gayle), a young woman he befriends and falls in love with whilst on assignment in England, who has no idea what he is really employed to do.

Multiple periods are captured on film, and the contrast between the stark, war-ravaged mid-forties and colourful swinging sixties makes the huge shift in world ideologies readily apparent.

Young German actor Tom Schilling plays the younger Thomas, who sees his native Germany destroyed by the Russian invaders. His family is killed, leaving him orphaned, and with only his girlfriend Melanie left (Bernadette Heerwagen). The most harrowing of the many gruesome scenes in the film happen to the youngsters, as the Russian soldiers assert their dominance in the cruelest and most sickening ways imaginable. Some scenes are almost unbearably tense and distressing, but bear testament in a sanitised way to the twentieth century's darkest moments.

Joy Division is viewed as a very solid spy thriller with war movie aspects, Joy Division is an engaging and moving historical story of one man's life irrevocably caught up in great world events.