There is more to this than just greedy children waiting for their old father to die, assisted in their intrigues and plans by his young housemaid, who blatantly steals everything she can reach from his home, but he doesn't mind. He knows he is about to die and soon and is well prepared, having no illusions about human nature, and associating mainly with ghosts from his past, of beloved friends who died tragically and who also wait for him to die but in order to have him joining them at last after many years of waiting. You learn to hate the outrageous housemaid who appears to have no scruples or conscience at all, and yet she is the one who ultimately helps him on the way, not to reach death but to reach life. It's a complicated but marvellous story with many surprising ingredients, and you can never guess who will make the next impressing entrance on the stage. The thing is, that the old dying man had a lover as a young man whom he could never forget nor quite cease hoping for a reunion with, and they actually keep in touch, she sending him flowers for his every birthday and he sometimes calling her up on the phone.. He could never desert his wife nor his children for that great love of his youth, but the housemaid finally discovers his secret and decides to help to finally realise the one great dream of his life. It's a terrible demonstration of human nature at its worst, but at the same time there is always room for reconciliation, atonement and forgiveness, as even in the worst human nature there always must be also something good. It's a very enlightening film about life on the final stage with the insight of old age into the other world, as he actually has acquired the art of talking with the dead, communing with them and understanding them better than any ordinary mortals can do. Sven-Bertil Taube makes a great performance, he is always good, and in the disgusting mess of betrayal, intrigue and foul play he manages to demonstrate the supremacy of human integrity, dignity and clairvoyant noble superiority.
