Movie Notes: A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Directors: Powell and Pressburger

This was an interesting film, and I mean that in the very best sense.

The movie's plot, in a nutshell, is that the British pilot of a WWII Lancaster survives, against all odds, his fall from his shot-up plane over the coast of England without a parachute.  Afterward, he meets the last person to whom he had spoken, an American radio operator with whom he falls in love, and Death -- in the form of an effete French gentleman who attempts to convince him to die.  The movie's plot travels forward in parallel: a technicolor production on earth wherein a neuroscientist and his new found love work to save his life, and a black-and-white drama in heaven where he appeals his death sentence to the highest court.

Heady stuff this, but the production rises to the occasion in its own peculiar style.  David Niven is very good, and I like the look and sound of Roger Livesey, but in this film his single-tone manner of delivering lines got a bit old.

The movie, shot during the last days of the war, is eminently timely.  Death is an ever-present reality, but to say it is more immediate during wartime is to trivialize that very real horror.  Heaven is shown to be very large, and young men in flying uniforms are constantly passing through its doors.  Other doors are also referenced, and the scale and scope of this catastrophe is thereby portrayed both cleverly and poignantly.

All in all, this is a movie I'd recommend!

Movie Notes: The Thief of Baghdad

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
Directors: Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger, Tim Whelan

This is a remake of the 1924 silent version, but the story is completely rewritten.  In fact, it has more in common with a famous Disney animated movie of my childhood than it has with the Douglas Fairbanks adventure.  It includes a toy-loving sultan, a wily thief and lovable sidekick named Abu, an all powerful but silly genie, and an evil vizier named Jaffar intent on stealing away the toy-loving sultan's daughter.

This is not a perfect film.  Ahmad, the romantic male lead, is dull and uninteresting.  So is the princess in whom he is interested.  However, Sabu plays the titular character Abu to perfection.  He brings energy and life to the whole movie and is a joy to watch.

At the end, the movie springs a philosophical reflection that justifies the whole exercise in spectacle and nonsense in a vein of thought that  reminded me pleasantly of Winnie-the-Pooh or Peter Pan.