Yeah. I don't remember that I had the same complaint about Here Comes Mr. Jordan, of which A Matter of Life and Death strongly reminded me—here a pilot overstays his death bailing out of a doomed bomber when the angel responsible loses him in a fog; there an overzealous angel snatches a boxer from the plane crash he was, in fact, scheduled to survive; bureaucratic complications ensue—but it's a sillier film, in which the device of the heavenly screw-up allows for mistaken identities, screwball noir, and Claude Rains as God. (Edward Everett Horton as Messenger 7013 is clearly a Small God of Dithering. I love the man.) The clerical minutiae of the afterlife through which the protagonist boings like a yo-yo are never meant to invoke anything other than smiles or possibly winces, that the paperwork doesn't end when you're dead and newbie nebbishes can still ruin your day. It's a completely different feel.
If you do see A Matter of Life and Death, let me know what you think. I keep seeing it referred to glowingly, which makes me wonder if there's some central point I'm missing.
I want to see that movie--it's too bad about the score, especially as I'm something of a Philip Glass fan.
You might like it; I'm not familiar with Philip Glass as a composer, so it's possible that this is a characteristically excellent example of his work and I just don't happen to like his music. The film itself is awesome.
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Yeah. I don't remember that I had the same complaint about Here Comes Mr. Jordan, of which A Matter of Life and Death strongly reminded me—here a pilot overstays his death bailing out of a doomed bomber when the angel responsible loses him in a fog; there an overzealous angel snatches a boxer from the plane crash he was, in fact, scheduled to survive; bureaucratic complications ensue—but it's a sillier film, in which the device of the heavenly screw-up allows for mistaken identities, screwball noir, and Claude Rains as God. (Edward Everett Horton as Messenger 7013 is clearly a Small God of Dithering. I love the man.) The clerical minutiae of the afterlife through which the protagonist boings like a yo-yo are never meant to invoke anything other than smiles or possibly winces, that the paperwork doesn't end when you're dead and newbie nebbishes can still ruin your day. It's a completely different feel.
If you do see A Matter of Life and Death, let me know what you think. I keep seeing it referred to glowingly, which makes me wonder if there's some central point I'm missing.
I want to see that movie--it's too bad about the score, especially as I'm something of a Philip Glass fan.
You might like it; I'm not familiar with Philip Glass as a composer, so it's possible that this is a characteristically excellent example of his work and I just don't happen to like his music. The film itself is awesome.