The December Challenge: Film #100

What is life without love?

This is a question at the heart of Powell and Pressburger’s classic, A Matter of Life and Death: a movie I adore unreservedly and the only fitting choice for my 100th film of the December Challenge.

It seems to me that your first introduction to the work of The Archers often ends up becoming a lifelong favourite. Their films, particularly those made between ‘43-’48, are magical and transformative experiences that open your eyes to a whole new world of cinema you never even knew existed. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that your first taste is always going to be the sweetest and most enduring. Whilst A Matter of Life and Death…

I LOVED this!

With a wonderful opening that's eerily reminiscent of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life from the same year, but far superior in both execution and elocution, and a central conceit that may have been influenced by Alexander Hall’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan, but turned on its head, A Matter of Life and Death is simply charming.

There’s something about that particular time where it’s ok for true love to blossom in the space of minutes over the wireless. We believe it. Completely. When by chance, and I’m so glad that chance always works for the better in these types of films, our soon to be lovers meet, against all odds on heaven and earth, you know this…

77/100

Second viewing, last seen 25 years ago, and boy did I not remember that the trial takes a lengthy, impassioned detour into Anglo-U.S. relations. Which isn't without interest, to be sure, but feels clumsily imposed upon this particular narrative, cross-pond romance notwithstanding. (Apparently, it was imposed...or, rather, the project was initially commissioned as a means of improving said relations. While that worked beautifully in A Canterbury Tale—my very favorite Archers production—it feels more like an afterthought here.) Also not keen on Goring's arch, twinkly performance, which stands in stark contrast to the Other World's bureaucratic vibe. Everything else, from Niven and Hunter's instant long-distance rapport in the extraordinary opening sequence (one of very few "love at first sight" encounters…

Part of The Archers Season - 1942 to 1957

If I had been smart, I would have prepared myself for this review by finding an online thesaurus and finding all the synonyms for 'wonderful' that I could possibly could.

I didn't do that, though, because I was too busy watching this film. It was a completely different experience watching this today compared to when I first saw it as a 19 year old. Back then my film tastes were not particularly defined (in fact, they're still not) and I was just watching anything that was on and that I fancied the look of. I didn't know anything about A Matter Of Life And Death when it came on Channel 4…

C'était comme... Final Destination, mais en quand même bon.

Je dis quand même bon, mais j'ai pas tant trippé. Je mets une assez bonne note parce que je vois et reconnais tout ce qu'il y a de bien dans le film (l'alternance entre la couleur et noir et blanc quand on passe de la vie humaine à la vie après la mort, c'était malade, pis il y avait aussi quelque chose de kafkaesque dans la bureaucratie de cette vie après la mort qui n'était pas sans me déplaire), mais je sais pas... Quand tu fais de l'amour de deux personnages un enjeu narratif aussi important dans ton film, me semble que c't'important que tes deux personnages, ben tu les regardes…

'A Matter of Life and Death' (aka 'Stairway to Heaven') is a romantic and philosophical fantasy and is so far above and beyond the set brief of "make a film about British and American shared values", that only Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger could have conceived it. A British WWII pilot (David Niven) aboard a stricken Lancaster, spends his last minutes talking to a female American radio operator. He jumps out with no parachute but miraculously survives the fall, chancing upon the same girl the next morning, they instantly fall in love. He then begins to have visions of somebody who may be an angel, who reveals that he should have died in the fall but got lost in the…