![A Matter of Life and Death](https://apps.watershed.co.uk/shared/imagecache/appimages/7417/default/16-9/750/23/10/a_matter_of_life_and_death_1946_kim_hunter_david_niven_itv_studios_global_entertainment_park_circus_3.jpg)
A Matter of Life and Death
classified U'Color by Technicolor'
Please note: This was screened in Dec 2023
“A most peculiar and potent cocktail of romance, theology, global bridge-building and national tub-thumping, this thoughtful drama about one pilot’s deferred mortality remains, if nothing else, a definitive monument to the power of Technicolor.” James Healy
Set in a gorgeously photographed Technicolor England and a monochrome heaven, A Matter of Life and Death took the imaginative daring of jointly credited writer-producer-directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to new heights.
David Niven plays a British airman who survives a plane crash and falls in love with an American radio operator (Kim Hunter), only to be summoned to the afterlife by a heavenly ‘Conductor’ (Marius Goring). But is heaven just a hallucination brought on by brain injury?
Powell and Pressburger layer breathtaking visual tricks on top of this whimsical premise, such as a celebrated point-of-view shot in which our hero’s eyelid closes over the camera lens. The film also works as a sly satire on Anglo-American relations at the end of WWII.