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!
