"Tell me, do you believe in the survival of human personality after death?""I don't know, I'd never thought about it, do you?""I don't know, I've thought about it too much."
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Regie Emeric Pressburger +1
An acclaimed, spectacular romance.
Carters Flugzeug wird während einer der letzten Luftschlachten des Zweiten Weltkriegs über England angeschossen. Die gesamte Besatzung außer ihm ist tot, er selbst hat keinen funktionierenden Fallschirm mehr zur Verfügung. Carter erwartet in stoischer Ruhe den sicher scheinenden Tod. Sein letzter Kontakt zur Außenwelt ist die Stimme einer amerikanischen Funkerin, die ihm Mut zuspricht, und in die er sich verliebt. Als Carter zuletzt aus seinem Flugzeug ohne Fallschirm abspringt, überlebt er auf wunderbare Weise. (Wie sich später herausstellt, hat der Engel, der ihn abholen sollte, sich im britischen Nebel verirrt.) Carter trifft June, die beiden werden ein Paar, im Himmel ist man aber über die unvorhergesehene Panne keineswegs glücklich. Der erkrankte Carter wird im Traum über die Himmelsstiege zu einer Art Prozess geholt, der entscheiden soll, ob er tatsächlich am Leben bleiben darf. Natürlich siegt am Ende die Liebe.
Heute keine Spielzeiten für A Matter of Life and Death in Los Angeles.
"Tell me, do you believe in the survival of human personality after death?""I don't know, I'd never thought about it, do you?""I don't know, I've thought about it too much."
The decision to make all of the fantasy sequences black and white while the "real life" sequences are technicolor speaks so much to the unorthodox philosophy of this movie. The afterlife may not be such a bad place, but there's something more appealing, more romantic about the fleeting, the evanescent, the malleable. Eternity is static (everyone dead is wearing the uniform in which they died, clinging to the beliefs with which they died), while on earth there is love, sadness, hope, grief, learning, growing, drama, etc. The afterlife isn't necessarily heaven. Heaven is love, so choose life.There's no way to approach this movie that doesn't find it an unmitigated success. It's wonderfully romantic. It's hilarious and entertaining. It's a fantasy spectacle with jaw dropping analog effects. It's a post-war curative that inspires patriotism and a spirit of cooperation. This is one of the best movies.
One of the greatest moments in all of cinema is when Marius Goring looks at the camera and says “one is starved for technicolor up there.”
It follows a British wartime pilot who survives a plane crash against the odds and subsequently finds himself caught in a metaphysical legal battle to determine if he should live or die.
It was directed by the acclaimed filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1946, collectively known as The Archers.
While it did not receive major Academy Awards, it is frequently cited by critics and filmmakers as one of the greatest and most visually innovative works in British cinema history.