Bureaucracy in Hell is wryly amusing, but in Heaven it's always a little disappointing, even if there is precedent in folklore.
It works for me in comedy: I like it in Here Comes Mr. Jordan, where it's gravely tongue-in-cheek in a way that still allows for grace notes of the otherworldly among the clerical red tape, and it's broader but still funny in The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945), which is a mess but an enjoyable one, and I was even cool with it in The Adjustment Bureau (2011), a rare (and surprisingly decent) modern entry in this subgenre. A Matter of Life and Death is not primarily a comedy, except maybe insofar as it aspires to the Dantean sense, and it fell flat for me. There are moments in the Other World that I do like: the vast, dreamlike escalator itself, the ancient statues lining it where Lincoln stands beside Plato and Solomon. Raymond Massey playing a patriotic American is existentially confusing, though.
Speaking of bureaucracy in hell, have you seen Angel on My Shoulder (1946)? I find everything about this movie adorable, including Claude Rains as one of my favorite screen depictions of the Devil.
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It works for me in comedy: I like it in Here Comes Mr. Jordan, where it's gravely tongue-in-cheek in a way that still allows for grace notes of the otherworldly among the clerical red tape, and it's broader but still funny in The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945), which is a mess but an enjoyable one, and I was even cool with it in The Adjustment Bureau (2011), a rare (and surprisingly decent) modern entry in this subgenre. A Matter of Life and Death is not primarily a comedy, except maybe insofar as it aspires to the Dantean sense, and it fell flat for me. There are moments in the Other World that I do like: the vast, dreamlike escalator itself, the ancient statues lining it where Lincoln stands beside Plato and Solomon. Raymond Massey playing a patriotic American is existentially confusing, though.
Speaking of bureaucracy in hell, have you seen Angel on My Shoulder (1946)? I find everything about this movie adorable, including Claude Rains as one of my favorite screen depictions of the Devil.