The Phantom Carriage

One of the best silent dramas I've seen. As dark and shadowy as anything the German Expressionists produced, but featuring performances that were quite understated and naturalistic for the day. No camera mugging and no unintentional laughs due to wild-eyed arm-waving histrionics. Sjostrom gave a convincing performance as the drunken, mean-spirited and frightening David Holm.

Set mostly at night in a dingy Swedish slum, the film had a very claustrophobic set-bound feel to it, aided by the low key lighting and extensive use of irising.

There was a deep, and typically Scandinavian, sense of despair and hopelessness to the narrative: the film begins in a rather grim present, and then we're told David Holm's story in a series of flashbacks (and flashbacks within flashbacks--a pretty complex story structure for 1921), where his character is offered numerous chances at redemption, but he doesn't take them, and we know he won't take them, because we've seen him die drunk and wretched and mean as ever in the present. The penultimate scene is as dark as any I have seen in all of cinema.

The writing and directing is tight and intelligent, even by today's standards. In several instances, Sjostrom skillfully sets the audience up to suspect one thing, and then pulls out a surprise. The ending might not be such a surprise to some viewers, but I didn't see it coming.

This movie deserves a full restoration and DVD release. Or even a crappy budget release. It just needs to be out there so people can see and appreciate it.

9.5/10, which rounds up to 10/10

It's undeniable that The Phantom Carriage's influence precedes itself. From its iconography of the grim reaper, it's Christmas Carol-esque tale of repentance, to echoes of Jack Nicholson chopping down the door in The Shining. If The Phantom Carriage is known for anything, it's for being Ingmar Bergman's source of inspiration for what his films would later muse upon. He would later recruit director and star Victor Sjostrom to lead on of his most acclaimed films Wild Strawberries. Of course, we already know how profound these concepts are nearly 100 years later and their importance is still imbedded in the film. It's fascinating to watch inventive techniques of translucence portrayed on screen too, though admittedly the prior year's Caligari is more impressive. Its real problem is undisciplined structure and its resulting poor pacing, but these are archaic issues of silent cinema that required a few years of trial and error. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is palpable, the ideas are timeless and it oozes with passion from Sjostrom, if not as nightmare worthy as the next year's Nosferatu.

8/10

The premise of this movie is intriguing, and based on an old Swedish legend which said that the last sinner to die on New Year's Eve would have to spend the next year driving Death's carriage picking up the souls of people who die. From the beginning we're pulled in to this story by both its special effects and its storytelling. The scenes with the phantom carriage wheeling around, including one over the water to retrieve a drowned soldier, as well as those with a transparent Tore Svennberg and his ominous cloak and scythe, are fantastic. Director Victor Sjöström's use of flashbacks was ahead of its time, and he gradually reveals everything behind a young Salvation Army worker's request to see a man before she dies.

Sjöström also plays that main character, and gives us a great performance in depravity. Among other things, he scorns help from charitable women in the Salvation Army by ripping up repairs to his jacket one spent all night mending, openly tries to pass along his disease (consumption) to others, and after tracking down his wife and small children, hacks down a door with an axe to get at them. It's pretty dark stuff. As he faces an avalanche of guilt over the consequences of his actions and his own impending fate, can he be redeemed? It's a weighty question that would later absorb Ingmar Bergman, who idolized Sjöström, and the link between the two provides additional interest. Aside from the influence the film had on Bergman, 36 years later Sjöström would play the main character in 'Wild Strawberries'. It's also notable that 'The Phantom Carriage' was one of Stanley Kubrick's favorites from the silent era, and that he, too, was influenced when he put together Jack Nicholson's axe scene from 'The Shining'.

As with many of the films from this time period, it drags in places to modern eyes, as interchanges between characters via intertitles and elongated facial expressions sometimes get a little tedious. It's also ultimately a morality tale, which may put some viewers off – and yet, I found the devotion and faith of the Salvation Army sister, as well as the prayer to 'mature one's soul' before dying to be uplifting. We see the dual nature of man in the film, good and evil, and it's put into the larger context of our mortality. It's fantastical, and yet we realize that someday death will come for us all, and whether we believe in an afterlife or not, we hope that we've done good things for others in the world. Well worth watching.

Revisited this movie recently. The Phantom Carriage acted and directed by Victor Sjostrom is a masterpiece on a technical level. It is a supernatural tale about sins, guilt and redemption.

The story is about David, a despicable drunkard, who doesn't mind spreading his pathogens on other people's faces. In fact he even tells others to do so. In search of her wife who ran away from him while he was in prison, David seeks shelter in a homeless shelter run by the Salvation Army Mission. Ther he is given a bed to sleep n inspite of being rude to sister Edith, she mends his jacket n in doing so she contracts his disease. One year has passed n the dying sister has one last wish, to speak to David, while our drunkard is sitting in a cemetery telling his two drinking buddies about his old friend Georges, who told him about the legend that the last person to die each year has to drive Death's carriage and collect the souls of everybody who dies the following year......

Of course the story is preachy, melodramatic n too simple but aft two years from the date of this review this film will be hundread years old. Apart from the solid direction n acting, the effects are brilliant. The ghostly illusion, the long shots of the carriage set against a vast dark landscape, the narrative structure with flashbacks within flashbacks, all this makes it a masterpiece considering it was made in 1921. God bless the fellas at the Criterion Collection.

Not as well known as the English, American, German and French cinema, though cinema from Sweden from the '20's was also quite good, interesting and revolutionary.

This is a movie that is made great by its story. The story is told in 'A Christmas Carol' kind of way, in which the death himself confronts the deceased with his past, present and what could have been. It's of course a story that concentrates on morals and it does this very well. The message comes across as very powerful and effective. This is of course also definitely due to the effective directing from the father of Swedish cinema; Victor Sjöström.

The story is based on the novel by other Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. The story is adapted by Victor Sjöström himself, who perhaps should had taken out a few more elements, to let the story and movie flow better. It perhaps takes a bit too long before the movie starts to take form and the story gets clear but when the movie does take form and pace it becomes a really wonderful one.

The movie does not only have a great story, it also is a good looking one. The movie uses some early and effective effects and uses some different color filters to create the right mood and to indicate what it past, present and 'future'.

Sjöström did not only wrote and directed this movie, he also plays the main character. Of course the acting in the movie is over-the-top at times, by todays standards but not as bad as in for instance early German movies was the case. And after all, this movie is more about its story and morals than it is about the acting, so it really doesn't matter much, or distracts.

A really great and effective underrated silent-movie classic from Sweden.

9/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/