A Matter of Life and Death (1945)
I had wanted to see this movie for a while, but it's out of print in the US and hard to find. I had to buy it for $20 from Movies Unlimited. The DVD is clearly budget and there are no special features (and the transfer could look better), but the film alone is worth it.
A Matter of Life and Death is about just that - life and death. David Niven plays Peter, an RAF pilot in the midst of WWII who is forced to leap out of his plane without a parachute. Before he jumps he talks to an American radio operator, June (Kim Hunter), and the two have a strong connection. He asks her to tell his family that he loves them, and then he jumps.
Somehow, though, he doesn't die, but survives after landing in the ocean. The movie never answers how he survives certain death. Peter, in fact, when he wakes up on the shore, believes that he's arrived in Heaven. When he realizes he's alive on Earth, he finds June right away and it's love at first sight.
However, even though Peter miraculously cheated death, he soon realizes that he sustained a brain injury in the fall which could kill him at any moment. June brings him to a brilliant neurologist (Roger Livesay) who wants to perform an experimental brain surgery on Peter to save his life.
That's really only half the film, though. The other half takes place in Peter's mind as he floats in and out of unconsciousness while he imagines Heaven and an Angel, Conductor 71 (Marius Goring), who was supposed to conduct him from Earth to Heaven. Because Conductor 71 screwed up, Peter insists that he shouldn't have to die and demands a fair trial in Heaven - if he wins, he'll get a long and happy life with June, if he loses he dies only a few days after his originally planned death.
The genius of this movie is that it presents our world in glorious Technicolor (as only the Archers could film it) and Heaven in drab black and white. Heaven is not exactly awful, but it doesn't look like much fun - it's orderly and everything is built on a massive scale. It's like the apotheosis of an earthly bureaucracy.
However, it is filled with soldiers and WACS from WWII - huge numbers of young people - and the question the film implies is why does Peter deserve to live more than any of them? And the implicit question within that question is - what does England deserve now at the end of this war? The film addresses both the good and the bad in English history - and the question seems to be - what will the survivors of this country do now? Do they deserve their lives that other people died for? Do any of us?
Peter's argument is that he was fully prepared to die when he jumped out of that plane - but a second chance caused him to leap at life and fall in love with June (and she with him) in less than a day. Because they never would have loved each other if Heaven hadn't screwed up, he argues that his second chance should be permanent. The Prosecution in Heaven argues that rules are rules and that he's supposed to be dead - Peter's lawyer argues that love trumps law. This being a movie who do you think wins?
Luckily, even though the movie has an unapologetically sweet happy ending, because it is a Powell and Pressburger film, we never forget the cost of the war - on England, on the soldiers who've died, and on June and Peter themselves. England needed tough people like them both during and after the war, and luckily some survived.
A Matter of Life and Death is about just that - life and death. David Niven plays Peter, an RAF pilot in the midst of WWII who is forced to leap out of his plane without a parachute. Before he jumps he talks to an American radio operator, June (Kim Hunter), and the two have a strong connection. He asks her to tell his family that he loves them, and then he jumps.
Somehow, though, he doesn't die, but survives after landing in the ocean. The movie never answers how he survives certain death. Peter, in fact, when he wakes up on the shore, believes that he's arrived in Heaven. When he realizes he's alive on Earth, he finds June right away and it's love at first sight.
However, even though Peter miraculously cheated death, he soon realizes that he sustained a brain injury in the fall which could kill him at any moment. June brings him to a brilliant neurologist (Roger Livesay) who wants to perform an experimental brain surgery on Peter to save his life.
That's really only half the film, though. The other half takes place in Peter's mind as he floats in and out of unconsciousness while he imagines Heaven and an Angel, Conductor 71 (Marius Goring), who was supposed to conduct him from Earth to Heaven. Because Conductor 71 screwed up, Peter insists that he shouldn't have to die and demands a fair trial in Heaven - if he wins, he'll get a long and happy life with June, if he loses he dies only a few days after his originally planned death.
The genius of this movie is that it presents our world in glorious Technicolor (as only the Archers could film it) and Heaven in drab black and white. Heaven is not exactly awful, but it doesn't look like much fun - it's orderly and everything is built on a massive scale. It's like the apotheosis of an earthly bureaucracy.
However, it is filled with soldiers and WACS from WWII - huge numbers of young people - and the question the film implies is why does Peter deserve to live more than any of them? And the implicit question within that question is - what does England deserve now at the end of this war? The film addresses both the good and the bad in English history - and the question seems to be - what will the survivors of this country do now? Do they deserve their lives that other people died for? Do any of us?
Peter's argument is that he was fully prepared to die when he jumped out of that plane - but a second chance caused him to leap at life and fall in love with June (and she with him) in less than a day. Because they never would have loved each other if Heaven hadn't screwed up, he argues that his second chance should be permanent. The Prosecution in Heaven argues that rules are rules and that he's supposed to be dead - Peter's lawyer argues that love trumps law. This being a movie who do you think wins?
Luckily, even though the movie has an unapologetically sweet happy ending, because it is a Powell and Pressburger film, we never forget the cost of the war - on England, on the soldiers who've died, and on June and Peter themselves. England needed tough people like them both during and after the war, and luckily some survived.