A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946) *** David Niven effortlessly captures the elegant essence of being a gentleman, but actors are almost expendable when Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are this hot on the trail. On the trail of what? Oh yes, of what. Well, they're hot on the trail of their cinematic vision for one thing, mainly, I think, beautifully realized in spectacular scenes of heaven, no less. Well that's nice, too bad they had to go on trial day. But without that there'd be no plot, you see, and without a plot they wouldn't be able to generate their wonderful sense of...secular but religious sensitivies, liberal ones, forgiving ones I suppose, not in the abstract anyway, but set forth like a beginner rulebook after boiling the holy ones for awhile. Some people might not like that, hence the disclaimer at the beginning: this is all going on in the mind of a fictitious person. No one could complain about that, then! But they probably did. I didn't. It's wrong to complain when someone's engaged in such an ambitious project-realized at the expense of no one-as they're likely to hit something interesting along the way, you know. And they do. On a legal side note, it appears that Detrimental Reliance is not a cause of action in heaven, though Negligence is broadly construed. Celestial judges appear to have an endless appetite for nearly irrelevant evidence that is far more prejudicial than probative, and voire dire strategies center around historic nationalist bias. At least they only have court every thousand years though.
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