It's a Wonderful Film

Rating: 10/10 (23 November 2004)

For my generation - the MTV generation - there are certain things its cool to like and things that it isn't cool to like. We have to be able to look at the harder things in life and, if we want to be cool, take them head on. We have to be Fight Club members, listening to Jay-Z and spouting about how we're all atheists looking for anarchy. Luckily, for just 1 or 2 of us, we have a few embarrassing secrets. A few guilty pleasures in terms of music and film taste. On the music side we can see Beach Boys - PET SOUNDS and Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra (it IS cool to like the BEATLES). But, like the 1st member of a cinematic rogues gallery, ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE is the least cool film that has ever been made. BUT - No surprise - this film is magic captured on celluloid.
I adore It's a Wonderful Life. It is perhaps my single favourite cinematic achievement. It takes a writer (if I do say so myself) to fully appreciate the power of this film. Recently, I've been working on a kind of Ikiru/IWAL Christmas story and difficulty isn't the word to describe it. Every step you take you have to stop and think "this is so much better in It's a Wonderful Life". Even everything in Ikiru is at least bettered in It's a Wonderful Life if not blown out of the water (but its cool to like Ikiru). As a piece of literature, it's a masterpiece. Every character is perfect and almost Dickens-esque in their individual necessity - I actually think that it is more effective and powerful than A Christmas Carol - and not just ANY film can better Dickens in my opinion. As a film - it is so perfect that I just want to feel it melt on my tongue. I want it to destroy me, I want it to build me back up, I want it to affect me. And it hasn't let me down yet.
To conclude, It's A Wonderful Life is one of the most important and satisfying films ever printed. Fantastically abstract storytelling captures a mans entire life with miraculous ease. Barefaced and not embarrassed about any of its notions or characters, its complete lack of pretension strikes a chord with most viewers - it is the kind of movie most film makers are too afraid to make.