Why A Mat­ter of Life and Death is my favourite com­ing-of-age film

In the days before turn­ing 20, I realised how unpre­pared I was to move for­ward. Some­how, I didn’t feel like an adult yet – in fact, I felt more like a child than ever. As a result of my Eye Move­ment Desen­si­ti­sa­tion and Repro­cess­ing (EMDR) ther­a­py, mem­o­ries were sur­fac­ing like they nev­er had before, with my hap­pi­est sum­mers at my grandparent’s house pit­ted against my sad­dest days at pri­ma­ry school. I couldn’t run away from the past. It was only when my dad rec­om­mend­ed A Mat­ter of Life and Death that final­ly the time came to be brave. It was his wise nod that told me it was time to let go, and that I should trust this film to help me.

Pow­ell and Pressburger’s 1946 film isn’t like­ly to come to mind when the ​‘com­ing of age’ genre is men­tioned – films such as Stand By Me, What’s Eat­ing Gilbert Grape and Lady Bird are more com­mon­ly referred to. Sto­ries like these are the ones many peo­ple grew up on, learned to live by and that ulti­mate­ly remind audi­ences of our own nar­ra­tives. Their youth­ful char­ac­ters nav­i­gate mon­u­men­tal life changes; dev­as­tat­ed by the loss of inno­cence, they must achieve emo­tion­al growth.

But if I have learned any­thing as I’ve got­ten old­er, it’s that life will con­tin­ue to test you beyond ado­les­cence. Obsta­cles will arise, test­ing your very char­ac­ter and capac­i­ty – films like A Mat­ter Of Life and Death serve to remind us that com­ing-of-age doesn’t end when you turn 18. When I had no guide through these moments, the film stood by as my per­fect mentor.

Orig­i­nal­ly a pro­pa­gan­da com­mis­sion, A Mat­ter of Life and Death was aimed at restor­ing Anglo-Amer­i­can rela­tions fol­low­ing the Sec­ond World War. How­ev­er, Pow­ell and Press­burg­er knew the film’s mes­sage had to run deep­er than this, aware that their world was dev­as­tat­ed by loss and upheaval. Peo­ple need­ed help tran­si­tion­ing into post-war life and remind­ing of the pow­er of love. A Mat­ter of Life and Death was cre­at­ed to teach the most impor­tant les­son of all: we must con­tin­ue to cher­ish life, even in the face of hardship.

A Mat­ter of Life and Death’s pro­tag­o­nist Peter (David Niv­en) appar­ent­ly has his fate sealed by the open­ing scenes. Pilot­ing a plum­met­ing Lan­cast­er, he is born onto the screen in con­flict. The only life­line Peter has arrives in the form of an Amer­i­can radio oper­a­tor, June (Kim Hunter). The two share a pas­sion­ate exchange, with Peter declar­ing ​“I love you, June. You’re life and I’m leav­ing you.” This is where Peter’s com­ing-of-age moment begins, as he must fight to return to the love of his life.

The scenes inside the fiery Lan­cast­er sig­nal the begin­ning of Peter’s trans­for­ma­tion. Sur­round­ed by cor­rod­ed met­al and assault­ed by wind, he sees reminders of the two pos­si­ble out­comes before him: beside him, his dead elec­tri­cian and on the radio, a woman he feels an instant con­nec­tion with. He is trapped with the thing humans fear most: the unknown. It is here that Peter sus­tains the wounds he will car­ry with him through­out the film, both phys­i­cal (a brain injury) and spir­i­tu­al (the inter­nal fight to stay alive.)

When Peter sur­vives the crash and finds him­self alive on a beach, his char­ac­ter con­tin­ues to be test­ed. He finds him­self reunit­ed with June, but as they are pic­nick­ing aside blush­ing pink ros­es, Con­duc­tor 71 (Mar­cus Gor­ing) arrives, charged with accom­pa­ny­ing Peter to the Oth­er World. He informs Peter that there has been a mis­take and he must go with him to the after­life, but Peter insists on stay­ing, as he has fall­en in love.

With Con­duc­tor 71’s intro­duc­tion comes the time when Peter has to con­front his dif­fi­cul­ties head-on. With a cut­ting French accent and ocean­ic eyes, the Conductor’s hyp­not­ic pres­ence draws Peter away from his inner strength of resilience. With the abil­i­ty to halt time, Con­duc­tor 71 ensnares Peter into a game of men­tal chess, and with each step across the board, Peter becomes more des­per­ate than ever, ask­ing a vari­ety of pan­icked ques­tions that reflect the dizzy­ing con­fu­sion that comes with mon­u­men­tal life changes.

As Peter is then struck by headaches, June con­sults Doc­tor Frank Reeves who deter­mines that he must keep an eye on him, in light of fur­ther hal­lu­ci­na­tions. How­ev­er, the murky realms of real­i­ty and delu­sion con­tin­ue to inter­twine as Peter is vis­it­ed again by Con­duc­tor 71, who informs him he has three days to pre­pare his appeal before stand­ing tri­al to deter­mine if he can con­tin­ue to live with June or must accept his fate. Burn­ing with fever, Peter pre­pares to fight his case. Mean­while, believ­ing Peter to have a head injury caused by a pre­vi­ous con­cus­sion, Reeves pre­pares his surgery.

“A weak mind isn’t strong enough to hurt itself,” Reeves declares, as he reflects on Peter’s intel­li­gent, over­ac­tive mind and the del­i­ca­cy of his sit­u­a­tion. Reeves is right, espe­cial­ly as Peter approach­es his final hur­dle – the tri­al is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of our tough­est demon: our inner selves. Tak­ing place in the Oth­er World, Peter is forced to bare his soul despite his all-encom­pass­ing anx­i­eties. His death, his health, the surgery, June – all of these prob­lems must be acknowl­edged but ignored for the sake of push­ing on.

In the life­less­ness of the Oth­er World Peter’s com­ing-of-age moment is realised. Gaz­ing out at its seas of black and white, there is one speck of colour remain­ing for him – June’s lip­stick. The tri­al rein­forces the Earth’s con­for­mi­ty to uni­ver­sal law, rou­tine and log­ic but Peter’s human love for June tran­scends these unsen­ti­men­tal con­cepts. As the cou­ple on the esca­la­tor between worlds, Peter grins – his love is so vis­i­ble that it has over­come cos­mic order. In the face of death, he has found what it means to live, and it has saved him.

A Mat­ter of Life and Death isn’t your typ­i­cal com­ing-of-age movie. Its char­ac­ters aren’t youth­ful and it was a delib­er­ate piece of wartime pro­pa­gan­da. But it doesn’t have to be con­ven­tion­al because it reflects the fact that we will nev­er stop ​“com­ing of age.” For me, my com­ing-of-age sto­ry begins and ends with change in the face of anx­i­ety. But what A Mat­ter of Life and Death taught me is sim­ple: endurance must con­tin­ue long after we turn 18, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. After all, there are plen­ty of things worth liv­ing for.