A Matter of Life and Death
February 23, 2009
The first of three successive Technicolor masterpieces photographed by Jack Cardiff for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, this famous early post-war gem, making its debut on DVD, features stunning sets and a beautiful use of color and black and white photography to tell a tale of love and collaboration in a time of regrowth. On a mission during the final days of the war, RAF pilot David Niven radios to base that he's going down, telling American volunteer Kim Hunter to tell his mother he loves her; when the pilot washes ashore on a sunny beach, after missing his afterlife Collector (Marius Goring) in the fog, he instantly finds the girl and falls hopelessly in love, prompting a debate in Heaven as to whether the couple deserves a proper chance due to the mess up. Utilizing as many cinematic tools at hand, most notably, the glorious use of mixing monochromatic film stock for the Heaven sequences with stunning Technicolor stock for the Earth scenes (says Goring in the film's funniest bit of self-reflexivity, “one is starved for Technicolor up there”), Powell creates a vision that is at once epic – the famous “stairway to heaven”, as the film's American title notes, is nothing short of a modern design miracle for Alfred Junge – and intimate, the power of Niven and Hunter's immediate love coming through in something as small as a teardrop on a rose, or as large as to stop time itself. What at first plays as an intentional attempt to smooth out the differences between American and British sentiments after the war (Niven's trial boils down to American Raymond Massey vs. Brit doctor Roger Livesey in a 25-minute cultural standoff with fate and destiny at stake) essentially becomes a philosophical study of the right to live, and whether a person responsible for the happiness of another has more rights over a kid shot down over Germany with ties to no one. With “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” to come, and “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” and “I Know Where I'm Going!” already in the past, this one of a kind film from Britain's best film-makers would appear to be just another glorious step on an endless ladder of great works, but it's more than just one of a bunch, it's the best film of Powell's career, and possibly the greatest English film of all time.
By Adam Suraf