Released: December 1946

Directed by: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Cast: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Marius Goring, Robert Coote, Kathleen Byron, Richard Attenborough, Abraham Sofaer, and Raymond Massey as Abraham Farlan.

First time viewing.

A Matter of Life and Death is a movie about love, but it also about so much more. Life and death to be sure. The afterlife without theology to gum up the works, but rather humanity as a whole needing to embrace and begin to heal.

Squadron Leader Peter Carter (David Niven) is a pilot in a bit of a fix. His Lancaster bomber is severely damaged and going down. He ordered the crew members who weren’t dead to bail out. With the crew gone he discovered that his own parachute had been destroyed by a burst of flak. Peter is telling all this to June (Kim Hunter), an American radio operator at a U.S. Army Air Base. Peter knows there is no hope for him. But over the course of this desperate conversation, June tries to convince him otherwise. They fall in love and Peter jumps from the plane and into the foggy abyss.

Meanwhile, in ‘the other world’, members of Peter’s crew report, and sign in, along with other British and American bomber crews. However, Peter doesn’t show up. It seems that Conductor 71 (Marius Goring), the guide assigned to escort Peter to the other world, lost Peter in the fog.

Complications ensue, Peter does meet June, and indeed they have fallen in love. Conductor 71 has failed to report his mistake by 20 hours. Giving Peter 20 hours he was not supposed to have. This leads to putting Peter on trial for his life or death.

A Matter of Life and Death is a sharp, witty fantasy that is so smart and well made that it puts most modern movies to shame. The writing, directing, and producing team of Powell and Pressburger crafted a masterpiece of cinema in a filmography crowded with masterpieces.

Released in 1946, A Matter of Life and Death comes at a time when the world was just beginning to heal from world war. Things were and needed to change. Peter’s trial is extraordinary. Abraham Farlan, brilliantly played by Raymond Massey, a Bostonian who was killed in 1775 over some business involving taxes on tea, who happens to hate the British, is chosen as prosecutor. June is also from Boston, in love with a British subject, and does not sit well with Faran. The deck is stacked against Peter.

What is interesting about this scenario, Farlan venomously hates the British. When he presents his case against Peter, Farlan is so willing to open old wounds of the past that it would seem to be worth going to war again to prevent Peter and June’s love. Of course, Farlan is out of step with the times. When Peter’s defense is allowed to request a new jury, Farlan gets a real poke in the eye.

The visuals in A Matter of Life and Death are staggering. Shot in three-strip technicolor, and the scenes in the other world are in black and white, creating visuals that make the most of both processes. A massive escalator to the other world appears endless. The setting for Peter’s trial, with an audience of everyone who has died in war, is equally never ending. In fact it’s the size of a spiral galaxy. In Technicolor, England has never looked better.

The script is witty and very sly, with the argument of the U.S. and England becoming enemies again after just being allies and winning the world’s greatest war, seems very daring. Peter’s defense is filled with such truth that both sides have no choice but to be satisfied. The whole trial is brilliantly scripted, unpredictable, and clever, you just want it to go on and on.

A Matter of Life and Death is a movie that seems to overshadowed by other Powell and Pressburger films, or other auteur filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock or Orson Welles. Just as much as The Red Shoes, Vertigo or Citizen Kane are must viewing for film fans, A Matter of Life and Death is absolutely essential for anyone who loves cinema. It’s just that darn smart and well made, and I will be watching it again.

A Matter of Life and Death is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.