A Matter of Life and Death (The Criterion Collection)

After miraculously surviving a jump from his burning plane, RAF pilot Peter Carter (David Niven) encounters the American radio operator (Kim Hunter) to whom hes just delivered his dying wishes and, face-to-face on a tranquil English beach, the pair fall in love. When a messenger from the afterlife arrives to correct the clerical error that spared his life, Peter must mount a fierce defense for his right to stay on earthpainted by production designer Alfred Junge and cinematographer Jack Cardiff as a rich Technicolor Edenclimbing a wide staircase to stand trial in a starkly beautiful, black-and-white modernist heaven. Peppered by humorous jabs intended to smooth tensions between the wartime allies Britain and America, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburgers richly humanistic A Matter of Life and Death traverses time and space to make a case for the transcendent value of love.