A Matter of life and death is a film that I had heard was good, It crops up in best film lists and is always mentioned in the right circles. However I simply wasn't prepared for how good it would be. First of all the story; a pilot whose plane has been shot down, knowing his impending fate makes all his crew escape with the remaining parachutes then calls in to base where he talks to a young American woman, the two connect with each other on a deep level. Ejecting from the plane before it crashes (a preferable way to die it is claimed) the young soldier then finds himself washing up on shore, initially assuming he is in heaven he is surprised and delighted to learn that he is in England and only a short distance away from the woman he was talking to. The two fall in love and everything seems well. However in the afterlife the mistake is realised and an angel comes to earth to try and convince the young pilot to join him and return to the afterlife with him. The pilot demands a trial with higher powers, which he is granted. He must then prove that he has fallen in love and that he has a right and a reason to stay alive that he would not have had when he was prepared to die earlier.
Firstly this is the type of film that you would be surprised to see being made today, let alone in 1946, the story is original (and surprisingly still so 66 years later) and the ideas of love, destiny, not fully recognising your homeland and mortality are themes which are universal and will remain so for a long time. The acting is superb here too, the two main characters work off each other very well and you immediately feel the connection between them. What really impressed me though was the way the film was made. First of all the decision to have part of the film in Colour, and part in black and white. I've seen this done in a couple of films before, but I think the only film that does it better is The Wizard of Oz. Basically real life is played in colour, the afterlife in Black & White (the basic message being that life is rich and colourful, and not to be tossed aside arbitrarily).
More than simply changing colour schemes, the film uses techniques such as freezing the image when the angle stops time in order to speak to the young pilot. This is most impressively done through the course of a table tennis match where the match freezes mid game and the young pilot walks around the otherwise frozen players and struggles to comprehend what he is seeing. It's impressive today as it was then too. The scenes in the afterlife are grand affairs, whether it's a near infinite moving stairway that leads the characters to the afterlife, the shot of numerous offices where new arrivals are being admitted (this being mid war, they all seem sadly busy), or the eventual trial, where it seems everyone who ever died has turned up to see the events unfold, it all looks spectacular.
I've only seen this film once (and believe me I will be watching it again), and I have not read much around it, but I get the impression that it deals with lots of different themes and ideals as well as being a lovely story too. In fact the thing that strikes you initially is whether or not you can take the events at face value. On the one hand you've got a man being lost in the fog from those taking him to the afterlife, on the other a man who escaped death and is luck to be alive. Later in the film you've got the trial going underway in the afterlife, whilst the soldier is being operated on for a head injury, a risky procedure which, like the trial, could go either way for the young soldier. This alone adds another layer of intrigue on the film, is the soldier mad, or is it all happening to him.
I think I've made my point that this is a very interesting, very enjoyable film. If you simply want a love story you'll get a lot from it, but if you're after more meanings and theories about life's big questions then you'll get that too for sure. Just an utterly fantastic film in every way, one that sticks in the mind and will make you want to run around telling everyone about it!
No comments:
Post a Comment