DVD A Matter of Life and Death (AKA Stairway to Heaven)
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Review(s): DVD A Matter of Life and Death (AKA Stairway to Heaven) | |
| Brilliant, intelligent fantasy |  |
I know this movie under its original UK title, A Matter of Life and Death, and it's one of the finest, wittiest meditations ever on the relationship between earth and heaven, law and justice, England and America. Bomber pilot Niven finds himself in a rapidly disintegrating aircraft, shortly to come down over the sea. His last radio message is to an American WAC, Kim Hunter, who falls in love with him during their brief conversation. Then they lose contact, the plane comes down and Niven is washed up on a beach - but much to his surprise, he's not dead. He meets Hunter and they connect. However, up in heaven, things are not well. Niven should have died, and a heavenly messenger (Marius Goring as a deeply camp French aristocrat) is sent to earth to persuade Niven that he's in the wrong place. Meanwhile, Niven is suffering appalling headaches. His doctor (lovably blurry-voiced Roger Livesey) diagnoses a brain injury. On earth, Niven must have a difficult operation. In heaven, he must go on trial for his right to stay alive. Powell and Pressburger made the movie as part of a wartime propaganda effort to defuse tension between American servicemen stationed in Britain and the British people, who occasionally resented the Americans' higher pay, better uniforms and general chutzpah. But the film-makers exceeded their brief by several degrees. This is a lovely bit of movie-making; one of the wittier conceits is that life on earth is depicted on sumptuous technicolour, while heaven is in silvery black-and-white (the normal practice would have been to have it the other way round). Niven is a live wire, Livesey is as gruff and cuddly as ever, Goring is bright and cheeky (when he first arrives on earth and the rose in his buttonhole turns from grey to crimson, he sniffs it and sighs "Ah! Technicolor!"), Raymond Massey is cragginess incarnate, plus there's the gorgeous ice-queen Kathleen Byron as an angelic receptionist...ahhh. They don't make films as mad and as intelligent as this any more. (Well, maybe Trainspotting.) Great stuff.
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| Stairway To Heaven -- A Movie Classic Gem | |
This is one of the most overlooked gems Hollywood has ever produced. -- A young WWII British fighter ace whose plane is about to crash, has radio contact with a young American woman who comforts the brave pilot, knowing that within minutes he will be dead. For some reason the man who should certainly be dead walks away from the wreckage and eventually learns that he was meant to report to heaven. When a messanger is sent to ask the pilot to accompany him to heaven, the man refuses and demands to have his "day in court" to argue his case. The man argues that his situation had changed during the final moments of his earthly life, that he had fallen in love and therefor had become a different person, one who deserved a chance to live on. The "heavenly court" is a cinematic delight! The "announcement of the jury of peers" is a definite highlight. The story, as fantastic as it seems, is an engaging one and will keep you spellbound for the nearly 2 hours play time. The final scene is simply beautiful and will require a "Kleenex treatment" for most viewers. This film is in my personal all-time favorite top 10, it has my highest recommendation!
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| ssssssssssssssuper | |
Well... 42+ reviews and not one less than 5 stars certainly makes more of a statement about the quality, or at least value of this movie than I could ever hope to do. Yes it's sort of semi-centred around a partly cheesy but initially poetic romance, and it does ostensibly make some point about "the power of love", but its also about life's sentiments and quirks (love, nationalism, chess...) and perhaps even a point about the nature of reality (is it a dream, is it all real, is it a mix of both, does it matter, doesnt' it matter), the consequence and incosequence of imagination, real and fabricated.All the BS about themes and cases aside, A Matter of Life and Death is a fabulously entertaining movie, quirky and likable characters, a lovely semi-halucenogenic storyline, a witty script, extrodinarily complex yet readily understood, and terrific visual style. Certainly see this movie, although this is another movie I pray gets restored and released on DVD (the vhs is tolerable... but with such great visuals it is a travesty that it is yet to be released, when, in fact, it should have been one of the first "classic" titles on the medium).
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