平步青云

二战期间一架战机中弹即将坠毁。在行将死去之际，这架战机上的英国空军员Peter联系上了美国的军事电台女兵June并交代了他的遗言。两人只通过无线电波的声音就对彼此产生了好感（奇怪的逻辑但也许老片就这样）。

随后彼得在没有降落伞的情况下跳了机。他落在了海滩上，因为天堂运行故障暂时无法收人而意外活了下来，而且醒来后在海滩上遇到了June，两人一相见立刻坠入爱河托付终生（again，老片不要在意逻辑...）。

这时Peter死去的战友Bob没见到Peter，于是去问天国官方。天国接到消息后就派人来接Peter，但Peter在恋爱不想走，于是他去天国打了场官司。

在打官司时，法庭上大家漫天谈心，从爱情聊到民主再聊到殖民主义再聊到人权再聊到英美不同再聊到政体再聊到英美同盟，最终他们肯定了美国价值观、美国政体、以及英美同盟的重要性，并在对一系列价值观的认可下认同了Peter的申诉。于是Peter活了下来，有情人终成眷属。电影结束。

其实故事本身不怎么样，镜头调度之类的也没什么。这电影主要意义还是在于它的特效。正如罗杰.伊伯特所说："Today's movies are infatuated with special effects, but often they're used to create the sight of things we can easily imagine: crashes, explosions, battles in space. The special effects in "Stairway to Heaven" show a universe that never existed until this movie was made, and the vision is breathtaking in its originality."也就是说，一般的特效只不过是创造一些我们可以想象得到却无法做到的，比如爆炸、车祸、老虎之类的，但是《平步青云》却是创造了那个时代的人们无法想象的、脑洞极大的东西。不管是天梯还是天堂其他的各种非常风格化非常有趣的建筑，都在那个时代极具原创性且让人赞叹。

A fantastic cock-and-bull story to salve the morale at the end of WWII, UK filmmaker-duo Powell and Pressburger’s A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH whimsically goes off the beaten path to juxtapose two worlds side by side, the one on earth and the one in the afterlife (rigorously separated by its Technicolor/monochrome divide), only, in the center it is a hokey and far-fetched case of love-at-the-first-word, between a RAF pilot Peter Carter (Niven) and an American radio operator June (Hunter), their instant love after then becomes the rub of a celestial case, regarding Peter’s miraculous escape from death by jumping out of his burning bomber with a parachute (answerable by the thick fog over the England channel, lol!).

Since his survival is no fault of his own, purely a blip in the Almighty’s plan, Peter appeals against going to “the other world” as he has now fallen in love with June during the 20-odd borrowed hours, which gives him an obligation on earth (but it sounds feeble considering it is insensible to assume all those departed are taken without such earthly attachments), and he has to choose a counsel in the other world to defend his case.

With umpteen candidates to choose from (literally any dead beings who have once set their foot in this world), what Peter needs is a fresh one, British Dr. Reeves (Livesey), who, when he is alive, is fascinated by Peter’s brain injury and his claimed fantasy of meeting a time-stopping heavenly messenger known as Conductor 17 (Goring), must draw his last breath in a horrendous road accident to serve that singular purpose, and not one single tear is shed for him, alas!

During the celestial court (a wheeze to parallel it with a brain surgery on earth), Dr. Reeves is facing the prosecution team led by a grievance-driven American Abraham Farlan (Massey, out-of-sorts and grotesque), the first casualty in the hand of British army during American Revolutionary War, whose racist braggadocio might get under certain viewers’skin, the gist is that a British man is unworthy of an all-American gal. But eventually, the Anglo-American relations are channeled through an amicable solution when the gal willingly takes the place for the man she loves, why don’t they ask her first? Case closed.

For sure, the story doesn’t age quite well albeit the killer set-up, yet what puts AMoLaD’s name on the map is not its simplified message but a stunning, cutting-edge production design, from the opening astral projection, the modernist setting of the other world, to the “stairway to heaven” (which is used as its title in the North America), continuously rotating between earth and the afterlife (“heaven” is largely bypassed as a definition in the movie), and its immaculate chromatic transition between the two worlds.

The cast is serviceable, Niven has the chutzpah to claim that he is only 26 (in reality he is one decade senior), but Hunter squeezes enough gumption in a character that is devoid of any motivation on her own terms; Livesey is a stand-up dude, but it is Goring, playing a guillotined French aristocrat, ebulliently counterpoises the British gravitas with the much-needed levity and mannerism, a real hoot and a half, an epithet one can almost apply to the movie itself.

referential entries: Powell and Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES (1948. 7.9/10); BLACK NARCISSUS (1947, 8.3/10).

最近看的最好的喜剧片 最重要的是有一种带有电影的幽默 这种幽默并非其他媒介所能代替的 当死去法国人因公要出现在人间 他开了特艺色彩技术的玩笑 在他出现的第二次 女主角和医生在打乒乓球 但鲍威尔用了定帧 让这个极有运动感的画面定住了 刚沉浸于剧情的观众以为电影的放映会出了问题 其实也是结合剧情很有幽默的一个点 当失去的法国人出现 电影进入另一个时空 幽默极高