"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."
Cinemas
Directed by Emeric Pressburger +1
A Matter of Life and Death
An acclaimed, spectacular romance.
Romance
Fantasy
Drama
Comedy
1946
1h 44m
A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court, hoping to prolong his fledgling romance with an American girl.
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Cast & crew
7What people say
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.”
Common questions
What is A Matter of Life and Death about?+
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.
Who directed A Matter of Life and Death?+
It was directed by the acclaimed filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1946, collectively known as The Archers.
Has A Matter of Life and Death won any awards?+
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.
