A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

 "Stupidity has saved many a mind from going mad."

This is certainly a contender for the finest film I've ever seen and although, at the time I blogged my first film in 2011 I felt myself slghtly uncultured when it came to cinema (if you grew up wearing hearing aids in an era of videotape, with no subtitles, reading books becomes a much lazier option) but I suspect I may have a broader perspective now, aged 44 in 2021. This may well be the film I currently believe to be the greatest ever made, flexible though such statements are. Ask me tomorrow.

What makes this film great isn't necessarily the superb direction by Powell and Pressburger- many films are well shot. Nor is it the charismatic performance from David Niven. It's impressive, but hardly the only excellent performance from a star that there ever was. It's well made, well acted, well-written and all the things one usually praises a film for. These things explain why it's good, but not why it's great.

No; what makes this possibly the greatest film ever made is... well, the wit, yes, but it's better than that. The opening line "Space. Big, isn't it?" seems to presage Douglas Adams in four words. The parallel between Peter's operation and his trial in the gloriously bureaucratic afterlife is exquisite and, in hindsight, much imitated. Kim Hunter is sexy. The use of poetry, and not just the usual F.R. Leavis-approved stuff, is glorious. One has to admire a film that, in 1946 and at the height of Sir Walter Scott's unfashionability, slips him in among the Marvells and a nicely obscure work from Ralegh.

The dialogue is lierature. The people are real. This is the greatest film ever made. Possibly.