A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

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Last night I watched A Matter of Life and Death. It looks stunning. The Technicolor transfer is brilliant, and so is the film. The colors are breathtaking and the black and white scenes are luminous and "pearly". What I watched on my screen for 104 minutes made my pupils dance with joy, and my heart soar as if with wings at the beautifully rendered story.

This is a not just a home-run, folks. Criterion has knocked this one completely out of the ballpark.

The opening scenes are like the beginning of a fantastically colorful fairy tale, The camera pans through the celestial firmament, a deep sea of blues and blacks in which the stars twinkle like diamonds, before showing the planet Earth. The screen then segues to David Niven piloting his burning Lancaster bomber with his dead radioman staring at the camera (...oops, the corpse moves his eyes ever so slightly, about the only nit there is in this nearly perfect drama). There is detail to be seen in the instruments, the sweat and blood on Niven's face, the engine flames visible out his cockpit window. And then Kim Hunter appears as the voice on his radio, trying to guide him home in his wrecked bomber through a thick fog blanketing the English coast. Except for the dead, his crew has all bailed out, leaving Niven, the pilot and wing commander, alone at the controls. It is dramatic stuff. Kim Hunter looks angelic against a backdrop of coral-colored light in her radio room, trying to fight back tears as she listens to Niven give his farewells and flirt with her at the same time. His plane is doomed and so is he, as he confesses to the lovely voice on the other end of his radio that, unlike his crew, he has no parachute.

I had heard of A Matter of Life and Death for years but had never seen it. For my first viewing to be Criterion's Blu-ray, I feel blessed. This is a marvelous film.


More of my review (there are no spoilers, just a bit long)

[Show spoiler]Powell and Pressburger are masters of intimate and compelling stories told against larger backdrops, but it is Jack Cardiff's amazing camera work that elevates their films to legendary status. As with his other P&P films, Cardiff has lensed A Matter of Life and Death with a keen sense of atmosphere. His camera angles and lighting create dramatic mood with the same artistry that a highly skilled painter wields a brush.

The cinematography compliments the performances on the screen. David Niven as R.A.F. officer Peter Carter gives the audience what is in my opinion the strongest role of his storied career. Niven, who had a gift for both comedy and drama, was often cast as charmingly mannered Englishmen in roles as varied as a weapons expert in The Guns of Navarone to a sophisticated jewel thief in The Pink Panther. Perhaps this was only natural for a man who had graduated from the British Military Academy at Sandhurst and entered adulthood in 1930 as an officer and a gentleman in the British Army. He resigned his commission a few years later and emigrated to America, where he bounced around odd jobs (including as a whiskey salesman) before ending up in Hollywood. Niven then joined a growing stable of British stars in Tinseltown (known as the Hollywood Raj) during the late 1930s and in a short time rose to leading man status in a series of films. When the Second World War broke out, he returned to England and re-joined the British Army as a lieutenant. His service included some work in the British film industry in war themed films to prop up the morale of the home front before transferring to the commandos and landing in Normandy after D-Day, where he worked in signals and intelligence scouting and reporting enemy positions. He finished the war as a Lt. Colonel, scarred by the experience and the horrors he had seen, rarely speaking about his time in combat.

While Niven is the main star of A Matter of Life and Death, he is surrounded by talent to match his own outstanding performance. Kim Hunter, perhaps most famous for her role twenty-two years later as Zera in 1968's Planet of the Apes, plays June, an American army technician serving in England as a coastal radio beacon operator for returning bombing missions over Germany. She falls in love with the doomed man over the radio as he chats with her in his final moments. Hunter is very good here. What could have been a weepy ridiculous melodrama becomes a wrenching, anxious odyssey as the story plays out thanks to Hunter's ability to make us believe in the better angels of ourselves, that love can elevate and redeem, even in burning bombers lost in fog and plunging to earth.

There are two other supporting standouts that must be mentioned. Roger Livesy, who plays Dr. Frank Reeves, a famed neurologist, and Marius Goring, as Conductor 71. Livesy is eccentrically brilliant and likeable as a man trying to save the life, and the sanity, of another. The story gives hints as to his ultimate fate; his character arc is the most important cog in the story and its most satisfying element. Without him, the movie would not be nearly as effective. Goring plays a Frenchman from the 18th century whose role is critical (and I will not reveal it here, as I think it best to watch the film and discover him for yourself). He is somewhat wicked and conniving, a trickster trying to atone for a grievous mistake, but a pleasure to watch as he gifts the film one of its most memorable characters.

NOTE: There is one scene about halfway through the runtime where the Blu-ray suddenly freezes during a Ping-Pong game, stays frozen for about 3 seconds, then switches scenes. It looks exactly like a Blu-ray having a glitch, freezing up, then skipping ahead. Having never seen the movie before, I thought "uh-oh" and replayed it several times before realizing it is intentional. Don't be alarmed. Your disc is fine.