FeedA Matter of Life and Death
July 3 2009, 9:00pm
I bought a Michael Powell double-feature DVD because I was on a Helen Mirren kick, and the other half of the double, "Age of Consent," was her first (or second, depending on who you ask) film. I'd never heard of "A Matter of Life and Death" (or "Stairway to Heaven" depending on who you ask) before.
Briefly: David Niven, Kim Hunter, 1946. He's a British bombardier whose plane is badly shot-up on its return trip over the Channel. Everyone else bails out, but his parachute is shredded. The radio still works, and he strikes up a bizarre, very fatalistic/romantic/British conversation with young American radio operator Hunter, before leaping to his certain death.
Only he doesn't die. He wakes up in the surf, on the beach only a few miles from the base where she's stationed. Apparently the heavenly "conductor" who was supposed to squire him away to heaven got lost in the fog. Eventually the mixup is discovered, but not before he's met Hunter & fallen in love with her. When the angels come for him, he insists on having a trial to determine whether he should be allowed to remain on earth.
It's a somewhat odd premise, but one can see how it could have been made into a fairly straightforward melodrama or romantic comedy. It's neither. Instead, it's a crazy mish-mash of metaphysics & psychology, in which it's never entirely clear whether the whole heavenly trial is actually happening, or is just taking place inside Niven's damaged brain. Add to that the fact that all the earthly scenes are shot in Technicolor, and all the heavenly scenes in black-and-white . . . and that everyone seems to be in on some kind of cosmic joke, which results in everyone playing at more or less the same balance of serious/comedic, and the result is one of the most distinctive/modern WWII-era films I have ever seen. Probably the *most*. Just really great, weird stuff.
Briefly: David Niven, Kim Hunter, 1946. He's a British bombardier whose plane is badly shot-up on its return trip over the Channel. Everyone else bails out, but his parachute is shredded. The radio still works, and he strikes up a bizarre, very fatalistic/romantic/British conversation with young American radio operator Hunter, before leaping to his certain death.
Only he doesn't die. He wakes up in the surf, on the beach only a few miles from the base where she's stationed. Apparently the heavenly "conductor" who was supposed to squire him away to heaven got lost in the fog. Eventually the mixup is discovered, but not before he's met Hunter & fallen in love with her. When the angels come for him, he insists on having a trial to determine whether he should be allowed to remain on earth.
It's a somewhat odd premise, but one can see how it could have been made into a fairly straightforward melodrama or romantic comedy. It's neither. Instead, it's a crazy mish-mash of metaphysics & psychology, in which it's never entirely clear whether the whole heavenly trial is actually happening, or is just taking place inside Niven's damaged brain. Add to that the fact that all the earthly scenes are shot in Technicolor, and all the heavenly scenes in black-and-white . . . and that everyone seems to be in on some kind of cosmic joke, which results in everyone playing at more or less the same balance of serious/comedic, and the result is one of the most distinctive/modern WWII-era films I have ever seen. Probably the *most*. Just really great, weird stuff.
