The Phantom Carriage (1921) User Reviews

Weighty and dark, an influence on Bergman and Kubrick

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 10 December 2017]

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.

They say this carriage "is no ordinary cart" . . . What a colossal understatement!

[wmorrow59 · 9/10 · 16 February 2007]

Victor Sjöström's Körkarlen plunges the viewer into life's lower depths for much of its running time, with grim scenes of alcoholic degradation, family violence and suicidal despair, but the most memorable passages involve the mythic image of Death itself. Here Death is embodied as a ghostly horse-drawn carriage, driven by a miserable sinner who was the last person to die on the previous New Year's Eve. For one year the wretch must collect the souls of the newly departed, and after twelve months of this horrible servitude the driver's own soul is finally released when the last person to die on December 31st becomes the new driver.

The scenes involving this carriage (the film was known as "The Phantom Carriage" or "The Phantom Chariot" in English-speaking countries) are eerie and mesmerizing, utilizing double-exposure cinematography that was quite sophisticated for its time and still effective when seen today. Most strikingly, the carriage travels to the floor of the ocean to collect the soul of a person who drowned. As fascinating as these scenes are, however, the bulk of the film is concerned with the downward spiral of David Holm, played by the director himself in an understated portrayal of a man who has given up on the possibility of living a decent life. In flashbacks we see Holm enjoying a pleasant day at the beach with his wife, children and brother, and he appears to be a perfectly ordinary guy. Abruptly, without segue or explanation, we then see Holm as an alcoholic wreck, in trouble with the law and alienated from his family. Ordinarily this leap from Before to After might feel like a story-telling deficiency, but in this case the filmmakers trust us to fill in the familiar, sordid details on our own. It's suggested that Holm has been led astray by his convivial friend Georges, the drinking companion who first relates the tale of the Phantom Carriage, but whatever the cause of his downfall Holm appears to be a lost cause, a mean-spirited drunk who takes perverse pleasure in inflicting pain on his family and in refusing to reform.

While David Holm is our central figure the story's true catalyst is a young Salvation Army nurse who takes a sympathetic interest in his case and doggedly believes in him despite his hateful behavior. When the nurse herself is dying-- indirectly due to her ministrations on Holm's behalf --she demands to see him, and thus inadvertently sets in motion a chain of events that will result in his recovery.

At times this film resembles Dickens' tale of Scrooge in its use of ghostly visitors who inspire a flawed man to take stock of his life, suffer over his misbehavior, and reform. I was also reminded of Sjöström's 1917 drama Terje Vigen, in which a man returns from jail to find his house empty and his family gone: a sequence echoed here. The director reiterates a standard theme of Scandinavian folklore, found earlier in his Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru (a.k.a. "The Outlaw and His Wife," 1918) that no man can outrun his fate. This time, however, it could be argued that David Holm actually succeeds in evading his seemingly inevitable fate, for he's given an unexpected second chance to make amends.

Viewers expecting a a supernatural tale will appreciate the sequences featuring the Phantom Carriage of the title, but may not be prepared for this film's painful examination of a troubled man's alcoholic downfall. But those with a taste for intense and powerful silent drama will appreciate Körkarlen in its entirety. It stands with the best serious cinema of its era and is certainly one of Sjöström's most accomplished works.

"A sinner whose lips are stained with wickedness, asks, beseeches -- Oh, break me, crush me, only save these three innocent ones!"

[ackstasis · 9/10 · 3 March 2007]

On a dark, gloomy New Year's Eve night, an ill nurse, her life slowly ebbing away, demands that David Holm be presented to her at once. We don't yet know who David Holm is, or why this nurse wishes to see him, but her only dying wish is to speak with him just one more time. On the other side of the town, nestled comfortably amongst the gravestones of the local cemetery, Holm (Victor Sjöström, who also directed) and two of his drunken associates merrily await the coming of the New Year. "Here we can tell just when to drink the New Year in," exclaims Holm, casting a finger towards the large clock tower that looms through the darkness. Little does he know, however, that he will not be alive to greet it.

To pass the time, Holm cheerfully recites a ghost story. He'd once had a friend name George, "a merry fellow" who was "smarter than the rest of us." On one New Year's Eve several years ago, George has broken up a potentially disastrous brawl, fearing that the final man to draw his last breath before midnight would be condemned to drive the phantom chariot for the next year, doing Death's bidding and collecting the souls of the deceased. "And, gentlemen, George died last New Year's Eve!" concludes Holm happily, not bothering to contain his mocking skepticism of the man's beliefs.

As fate has it, of course, an unexpected violent encounter results in Holm's death, just on the stroke of midnight. As the man's transparent spirit rises gingerly from his earthly body, he witnesses, to his horror, the distant approach of a phantom carriage. The driver, a frail cloaked figure - a sickle clasped tightly in his hand - steps down from the carriage and approaches. We are astonished to discover that the driver is none other than a decrepit George, preparing to pass on his ghastly duty to this year's successor.

Considering the era in which 'Körkarlen' is made, the special effects in this film are absolutely superb. Cinematographer Julius Jaenzon used double-exposure photography to create the eerie, ghostly silhouette of the carriage and its damned driver. Even today, the end result is highly effective. A particularly impressive scene involves the phantom chariot travelling to the ocean floor to retrieve the soul of a drowned man. Another scene, eerily reminiscent of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining,' involves Holm breaking down the kitchen door with an axe in order to reach his fleeing wife and children.

Genuinely ominous and unsettling in its execution, Victor Sjöström's 'Körkarlen' is a fine work of cinema, successfully portraying Holm's steady alcoholic decline, his inevitable day of judgment, and a final hopeful possibility of redemption.

Early Cinema, Mature Cinema

[marcin_kukuczka · 10/10 · 31 October 2010]

„Lord, let my soul come to maturity before it is reaped…"

"Strange...unusual..."someone may think...to begin a review on this film with a prayer, more to say, a prayer not to achieve wisdom or intellect but...maturity - something that has hardly been a theme of many top notch productions - something hardly even mentioned as a human merit in the commercial world - yet, something at the core of this film's message.

In the period of supermen and thrilling actions, viewer's eyes and perceptions are not used to such reflective dimensions. However, it appears that Victor Sjoestrom's masterpiece, based on the 1912 novel THY SOUL SHALL BEAR WITNESS by the Noble Prize winner Selma Lagerlof finds its most profound gist in that. THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE made almost 90 years ago is a milestone in Swedish cinema and a notable film that has overwhelmed eminent people of the 20th century, including Ingmar Bergman. But, I usually ask myself a question, especially before the meditative time of November, what is it that makes such films stand out as masterpieces. Is it the direction, the cinematography, special effects, narrative structure, or perhaps something less common in an ordinary discussion...?

Having watched the restored version with its newly commissioned soundtrack by KTL, I had a feeling that I was watching something unique. Of course, I had heard before how significant it was for the cinema but that did not play a decisive role in my experience. I was mesmerized whilst my own subjective viewing and found this silent pearl captivating. Yes, Sjostrom's film touched me tremendously with its innovative structure of flashbacks (although there are flashbacks within flashbacks, I did not get confused), with its powerful cinematography by Julius Jaenzon, with its flawless direction by the master of Swedish cinema who plays the lead as well. The images that are in this film are really hard to forget, hard to skip. The viewer is, as if, taken to its world, experiences what the characters get through, absorbs oneself to a great extend with what one sees in this silent masterpiece. Everything seems to be balanced and crafted so well, including the movements of the camera, the extensive use of special effects, double exposures in the visualization of the ghost characters who walk in three dimensions, the tension and the performances of the great Swedish cast of the time.

It is truly hard to skip the mesmerizing, symbolic, even ICONIC moments of the movie when the driver of the 'strict master' (Death) arrives at various spots, including the sea (intense visual experience), the room of a rich suicide, the streets as well as the graveyard where David (Victor Sjostrom) is to substitute his pal Georges (Tore Svennberg) on that memorable New Year's Eve. The visual feast finds its climax at the moment when David, having visited the dying Edit (Astrid Holm), the member of the Fralsningsarmen (Salvation Army), arrives finally at his home and sees the drama of his wife and children, the drama caused by his monster-like behavior. The visual moment worth high consideration is when David comes back to his home obscene and drunk, is closed in the kitchen by his wife who is afraid of tuberculosis infection and he brutally takes the axe and breaks through the door. The whole drama becomes visually and mentally so powerful that tears are running on the cheeks of a more delicate viewer. However, the greatest maturity of the film is its content so vividly derived from Selma Lagerlof's novel and so creatively executed in this picture...

There is everything that human heart can experience: love, disappointment, courage, sympathy, fear, bad influence, fights, suffering, loneliness, sorrow, wretchedness, despair, but finally the glory of reconciliation and tears of joy. There are truly different psychological dimensions, or more to say, mental journeys that the director, with the masterful power of the source novel, invites us to experience. There are elements of gloom, the elements of intensive mysticism; there is a redeeming power of prayer for other people (the plot of Edit) and the gist of penance. While the film seems to touch the very heart of Christianity at certain moments, it also appears to evoke thought provoking feelings about what, in fact, is the most important value in life.

The bitter experience of the leading character makes us shocked at first but...in time, indifferent to his feelings. He becomes a villain in our eyes. Although the character of Georges proves to us the consequences of bad influence, we don't see David as a victim (sort of) but as a single human being responsible for himself. We, as viewers, at certain moment, stop feeling empathy with the character but rather concentrate on other people, good people and cry with them. But, at the right moment, we seem to realize his plea to God, his fruitful tears of penance, we seem to forgive him as his wife (Hilga Borgstrom) does forgive him. The human heart appears to shout out from its depths: "Genuine redemptive tears!" What a drama! What a psychological feast! What a movie that evokes such feelings! That is the profoundity of THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE and though that aspect may be considered difficult to capture for some viewers, I think it is an absolute necessity while analyzing this film.

Although the movie has become a source of inspiration for many eminent people of cinema, I think that not all of them understood its gist in the right manner. Enthusiastically speaking, it is another silent film that proves the masterful nature of the early cinema and a film that may be seen from different angles. Nevertheless, there is also a danger that we condense its meaning to a sheer scary movie and look through the terrifying moments ignoring the rest. That would be nothing but an unforgivable conjecture. THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE is a story of a joyful gift, of another chance to become mature, a redemptive chance. Masterpiece, 10/10

a classic

[plaidpotato · 10/10 · 19 December 2002]

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

This film is a masterpiece to put it simply.

[JeyKey · 10/10 · 20 April 1999]

This film is a masterpiece to put it simply. Especially the double exposure made by the cameraman Julius Jaenzon. It is skillfully made even with the standards we are used to today seventy eight years later. Viktor Sjöström, the director, also plays the main character, David Holm. On the night of new years eve he is killed in a fight, and the legend says that the first one who dies on the new year, will have to work as a soul-collector in the form of a transparent ghost. There is a new soul-collector to be appointed every year.

The scene in which the alcoholic, David Holm, rises up from his dead body (like the soul is leaving his earthly body) in the churchyard (where the fight took place) is a real award for a filmloving eye. Also when the present soul-collector arrives with his horse and carriage is a beautiful but also a scary scene. David Holm recognizes this soul-collector as a drinkingfriend from earlier life. It is now his turn to take over. Just like Scrooge in Dickens story "A christmas tale", David is shown what his life and doings has led to for the people around him.

The film is about the danger of abusing drugs, in this case alcohol. It is based upon a book by Nobel prize winner Selma Lagerlöf. Viktor Sjöström filmed a few more of her books, but this is the one with the best outcome, maybe because this book is the most filmic of them.

A technical masterpiece tale about guilt n redemption.

[Fella_shibby · 10/10 · 13 February 2019]

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.

Best silent movie I've ever seen

[peter_olsson_1 · 11 September 2003]

The best silent movie I've ever seen. It's so harrowing and perfectly describes the feelings I've had about death, life, love and especially hope. It's optimistic ending makes it even stronger. I cried when I saw this movie the first time, which was the day after my grandfather's death.

He once told me this was the first movie he ever saw, in a cinema, to which there was a 10 kilometers walk in the snow. The cinema used to be so crowded the humidity got so high the walls were completely wet. Naturally I had a lot in mind that day. It wasn't the first time I saw the movie, but the first time I experienced it's meaning completely. I've never seen any silent film like this and that it's silent actually makes it scarier.

Great for 1921 but very, very preachy when seen today

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 4 May 2009]

Victor Sjöström was quite the master in this film, having starred in it, directed it and even wrote the screenplay! That's pretty amazing. While today few have any idea who Sjöström was, he might be familiar to Ingmar Bergman fans as the star one of Bergman's most acclaimed films, WILD STRAWBERRIES.

As far as this film goes, it's a very mixed bag. On one hand, you have to respect it because for 1921, it's a very good film. The idea of the Grim Reaper sitting down with a dead man to discuss his wasted life is pretty imaginative. Plus, the special effect of the Phantom Carriage is pretty convincing and technically speaking this is a well-crafted film. On the other hand, it's an amazingly dated and preachy film--more like something you'd expect to be shown in Sunday School instead of in an honest to goodness theater. Plus, some of the story elements just don't make sense. Instead of coming off as dedicated or good, the dying Salvation Army worker seems like a sap--a very sad and confusing sap. Why is she "in love" with this man? Am I missing something?

So, my recommendation is that if you are insanely in love with silents (like me), then by all means watch it. But, if you aren't a silent fan, this film might do nothing to convince you that this style film is brilliant because the story is so overly melodramatic and dated.

Much said without words.

[Aesir-Aalessoener · 10/10 · 29 March 2006]

Much said without words.

This is an excellent movie. It was made in color-not color as in today's films, but a special mono-color use (with shadings) that portrayed meaning, mood, sense and time. It should be seen in color, as it becomes an entirely different film. The story, by Nobel prize-winner Selma Lagerlöf, is effectively presented. One never has a clear sense of real, memory or phantom. Changes going on in Swedish society at the time are subtly layered. Most highly recommend. Try to rent it or find it on-line. I saw it in a Swedish film class and I want to add it to my film library.

Stark swedish masterwork meditates on death, loneliness

[funkyfry · 6/10 · 1 March 2004]

Director Sjostrom has painted a morbid picture of life in Europe's slums, using surrealist imagery and plain old sentimentality to tell his story of a consumptive bum (Sjostrom himself) who travels Europe seeking his deserter wife, but who seeks truly only his own demons and death. Interesting narrative structure allows for no suspense, but plenty of overlapping imagery.

Not going to light a fire in too many modern movie lovers' hearts, but this one was influential and still packs a pretty heavy punch, especially when you see Sjostrom willingly inflicting his illness on others, including his own children. Must-see for fans of Bergman and later Swedish masters.

Brilliant film; KTL soundtrack recommended

[Robert_Woodward · 10/10 · 29 March 2008]

Victor Sjostrom's silent film masterpiece The Phantom Carriage has recently been released on DVD with a new soundtrack recorded by KTL. The duo, comprising American guitarist Stephen O'Malley and Austrian laptop artist Peter Rehberg, has conjured an extraordinary collection of sounds to accompany and accentuate the original film footage from 1921. An ominous banging sound introduces each Act and a medley of drones, guitar chords and feedback ebbs and flows as the grim drama unfolds.

As impressive as the new soundtrack is, the film remains the real star with its timeless rendering of a dark and dystopian fairy tale. According to this tale the last person to die before the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve is condemned to spend a year behind the reins of the eponymous phantom carriage, collecting the souls of the dead. This is the fate of the anti-hero of the film, David Holm, who is moved to painful scrutiny of his life following his untimely death and subsequent encounter with the driver of the carriage.

This film is often referred to as a horror film and although this is a fitting label, the real horror here resides not in the supernatural elements but rather in the depiction of human suffering at the hands of others. Sjostrom gives a remarkable performance as the drunken, spiteful and menacing Holm in life, and the wretched, frightened Holm looking back from the land of the dead and shrinking from his past deeds.

Striking imagery abounds throughout The Phantom Carriage and more than compensates for the inevitably limited dialogue. The ill-omened onset of midnight is powerfully illustrated through the image of a clock-face hovering alone in the darkening night sky like a second moon. Equally impressively, the dead are depicted through pioneering semi-transparent imagery and the scenes of the phantom carriage riding over land and sea remain chilling to watch.

Sjostrom's film deserves its place as one of the most esteemed silent films of all time and the new soundtrack by KTL is a superb accentuation of its themes. This is a must-see.

Delightfully old-fashioned Swedish spook-show

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 27 September 2015]

THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE is another classic slice of Scandinavian horror and a follow-up for me after watching HAXAN: WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES. By comparison, this film's an entirely fictional production about the legend of a phantom carriage that trundles the globe, picking up the souls of the dead wherever it goes.

A troup of main characters interact with this legend in a tale of debauchery, drunkenness, and eternal condemnation. The film is heavy on the melodrama but in its story of human relationships and depiction of the human condition it hasn't really aged all that much. Still, the slim narrative comes second to the extraordinarily spooky visuals, as this is a film all about the cinematography. Creepy tinting, bombastic music, and above all the wonderful double exposure effects of the ghostly carriage and its occupants are what you take away from this, and they're wonderfully spooky in the best Halloween tradition.

The soul's long, hard journey into night (and the mechanisms that produce god)

[chaos-rampant · 12 October 2011]

Had I known this was going to turn out as deeply awesome as it did, I would have perhaps saved it for a time of need. I'm always looking for spiritual visions that permit a journey inwards, but they are so few in the grand scheme that I'm grateful for each and every one. I try to cherish them because they let me watch from the heart. It's why I keep myself from finishing off the rest of Tarkovsky's films - I want to know that there's always a drink of fresh water at hand when I'm parching.

I came to this, like most people I presume, for its reputation as a horror film where the reaper gets out to harvest souls. I collect these as well but for different reasons, and was expecting here something more or less expressionist. As with most silents however, it's not really horror by our contemporary sense; horror in these films comes from more directly abstract notions, guilt, humiliation, spiritual damnation, and it's usually with the intent to distill a life lesson. They may seem outdated now but only because we presume to know these things and so reckon that no further guidance is necessary - while we, self-sufficient modern humans in perfect control of our destinies, continue to live our lives in random iterations.

Here death itself. The journey of the soul in the world inside the soul. Like earlier texts of this journey, Dante's Inferno or the Egyptian Book of the Dead, it is advisable, imperative even, that we read beyond the feverish vision of the beyond. That we read between the collective dream the author has dreamed up as meant to await us and contemplate on why we dreamed in the first place.

The man who dies last on New Year's Eve - at the cusp of new life, and so at the start of a new cosmic round - becomes Death's driver for the coming year, this is the premise. He ferries the vehicle - and us as passengers - where the journey inwards or across can begin. Our man contemplates the chain of events that brought him lying dead before the carriage of death.

The opening chapters in the Book of the Dead that propel the process of rebirth, and which pertain very much here, are thus named: "The chapter of making Osiris S. possess a memory in the Underworld" and next "the chapter of giving Osiris S. a heart in the Underworld".

The man remembers, he had a perfectly good life and family but blew it up like so many we know of. He goes into prison and comes out reborn again with realization of what his deeds brought him. But he has to start again, like every new life he has to build his again from nothing. Instead he drags himself through this next life in a limbo of guilt and seething hatred. It is this unswathing of the spirit across different worlds that matters, and the dissolution in each one granting passage in the next. How strong karmas resonate from one existence to the other, powering the cart. Death's driver is granting the visions after all.

There is a woman in all of this, a nurse for the Salvation Army. From her end, she is looking to hear from god. We see from both ends, her trying to save who she considers a mandate from god and on the other side the man who is wrestling personal demons. If god doesn't speak through him, then he never spoke at all. In a beautiful scene, she spends the night mending his torn soul; when he wakes up, furious at the kindness, he tears it up again for spite.

More great cinema about the karmas metaphysically weaving together the participants: having failed to mend him, the woman literally contracts his illness. And when the man violently attacks with an axe a locked door, his wife on the other side falls to die.

The man finally wakes up from death though, having prayed and thus lay himself prostrate before a higher force. This is likely a part that modern viewers will find hard to swallow. But this is the thing; it is not literal death in these texts, never was. The underworld the soul must travel through to be reborn on the other side is always inside, why it's so often called a 'descent', and so the power to make a full transit by learning again life-value through the different levels always rests with the soul. What the man learns at the moment of prayer is the humility that shatters ego. Of course he is forgiven. One of the final chapters in that ancient Egyptian text reads: "chapter of causing a man to come back upon his house on earth". Notice that the dead man is no longer symbolically referred (and so protected) by the name of the god Osiris, having passed the horrible tribulations, now the deity is embodied inside.

So god does speak after all through this man, but it speaks to her who was looking to apprehend him and so, no doubt, will hear his voice in the miracle. From our perspective seeing deeper into these lives, our perspective itself dislocated from bodies and wandering with the spirits, we know there was no god: the miraculous transformation on the visible level was only the last step in a painful, arduous process of healing the heart. It's a powerful notion, worth two or three Seals (Bergman).

So it's really only us who can mend ourselves. It's a lesson, make no mistake, but a lesson worth keeping. Simply said, it sounds trite - most anything does if the words are not right. The man was told after all, no doubt he understood in some capacity, but it meant nothing. Which is why it's important to journey from the heart.

Something to meditate upon.

Impenetrable iconography and concepts.

[Sergeant_Tibbs · 8/10 · 8 August 2015]

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

One of the best movies of all time

[kris-oak · 10/10 · 7 November 2010]

This is perhaps among the best movies ever made. If you rent it or buy it, and take the time to see it you will never regret it. If you are tired of reviews, you can stop reading here....now run along and get it.

Based on Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöfs tale about a carriage driving around on New Years eve, collecting the souls of the dead.The tale is at once a ghost story, a morality and a social statement much like the best of Charles Dickens. The film was made when movies were very young but as with many of those pictures by Lang, Murnau, Wiene and even Stiller, they remain very modern both in language and story. (In those days the best movies were made in Europe; Griffith seems ridiculous compared to this.)

The film was made in heaven by a true genius, Victor Sjöström. By the time he started to dabble with pictures he was an actor employed by the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre. He not only directed the movie, he played one of the main characters and built the backgrounds when needed. To help him along came camera man Julius Janzon and those two created magic much like Orson Welles and Gregg Toland would do on Citizen Kane, later.

If you're not simply captured by the movie, think of this: Janzon double exposed up to x9 to gain the ghost effects; on a hand turned movie camera.

For Sjöström, just to prove his genius, he moved to Hollywood to make a few movies including masterful renditions like "He Who Gets Slapped" with Lon Chaney and "The Scarlet letter" with Lilian Gish. Both are masterpieces and if you see these movies you will recognize Sjöströms mark. Some say he left Hollywood, disappointed, after having seen Stiller been treated bad by Hollywood's "industry". Legend or not, he did leave.

Ingmar Bergman gave Sjöström a tender and loving exit part; a beautiful homage; in his legendary "Wild Strawberries" from 1957. Sjöström played old professor of medicine, Isaac Borg, traveling through Sweden and at the same time through the memories of his life. Wild Strawberries in turn is another legendary film...but that's another story.

Death comes to town.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 9/10 · 28 February 2007]

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/

Let the soul find peace before she will be harvested

[hasosch · 10/10 · 13 September 2008]

Körkarlen (1921), a classic film with cult status amongst the silent movies, directed by Victor Sjöstrøm, who also plays the male main role, is based on a story by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf. The film tells the story of brutal drinker David Holm, who beats up his wife, neglects his children, seduces his brother to drinking and is blind for the love of nurse Edit (Astrid Holm). David sits toward the end of the year together with his boozing buddies in the city-park and tells the story of the Phantom Chariot (Körkarlen): Who dies in the New Year's Eve night as the last one before dawn, has to serve one year long as driver of Death and release the dying souls from their bodies. But David gets into a fight with his buddies, suffers a hemorrhage and sinks dead on the soil. Meanwhile, the Phantom Carriage is approaching. The driver is nobody else than David's late friend Georges who seduced him into alcohol and died one year before. Since David refuses to get on the carriage, Georges forces him. Together, they drive to the stations where people live who suffered from David. They visit the nurse Edit whose love to David he was unable to recognize and whom he infected with tuberculosis so that she is dying now. But her unconditioned love to David will save his soul. Fulfilled with her spirit, they get to David's wife and children. David is able to prevent his wife from killing herself and her children, because she does not see a way out of the misery in which David has thrown her. They also visit David's brother, who has committed a murder after having been seduced into drinking by David. David asks Georges to go back into his body, because he finally sees that his way was wrong. Since it was Georges who had seduced him once into drinking, David's wish is granted, he gets a second chance, and Georges has to be one more year the driver of the Phantom Carriage in order to pay for his own sins. This movie belongs probably to the strongest and most impressive films ever made. Deplorably, it is still not available on international DVD.

Bergman-like Coachman Of Death Tale Memorable

[CitizenCaine · 7/10 · 4 May 2009]

Victor Sjostrom, who is the grandfather of Swedish cinema, directed this stark, existentialist film about atonement, betrayal, death, forgiveness, guilt, redemption, and the bleakest moments of the human condition. He stars as David Holm, a no good-nick who responds to a moment of kindness by returning to his drunken ways, only to later have to bargain for his soul with the driver of the phantom carriage: death.

Unlike many silent films during the period, the film is nearly absent scenes with over-acting. The pacing does become tedious with its overly familiar Dickensian narrative. However, examining the film in retrospect and in comparison to others of its time, it's a very daring and unique film. Audiences of the time were not exposed to such subject matter, and the cinematography is tremendous, symbolic, and accompanied by double exposure effects and multi-layered flashbacks. It's a genuinely creepy and frightening film for youngsters for sure.

Watching the film, it's easy to see the later influences this film had on Swedish master Ingmar Bergman. Most of the great Bergman themes are here on full display. Sjostrom, of course, later starred in Bergman's masterpiece on alienation and loneliness: Wild Strawberries. This would be Sjostrom's final performance as an actor. Sjostrom based the script on a novel by Swedish writer Selma Lagerlof. *** of 4 stars.

A FANTASTIC silent film!

[[e-mail] · 10/10 · 2 June 2003]

This, unfortunately, is a little-known film.....i say "unfortunately", because it ranks up there with the "classics" of the American silent screen!

It's about a legend of a "phantom chariot" that travells all over the world, picking up the souls of those who have died. The legend says tha the last person to die on New Year's Eve is condemned to drive the chariot for the next whole year.

It brings to mind the sequence of the "Ghost of Future Yet To Come" in Dicken's famous "Christmas Carol".

The double-exposure effects of the ghosts (esp. when they interact with the "live" people) are EXCELLENT!

If you love silent films, you MUST see THIS; it will "blow you away"!

Norm Vogel

Norm's Old Movie Heaven http://www.nvogel.com/film/film.html

Fantasy film too sentimental to be called horror

[mhesselius · 7/10 · 28 July 2010]

It's a mistake to refer to any film of this era as a horror film. Most early German films with supernatural themes are not so much horror films as they are dark fantasies borrowed from the works of early German Romantics like E. T. A. Hoffman and others. In Fritz Lang's "Der Mude Tod" (also from 1921) Death personified takes a young man away from his sweetheart, but in Lang's film the characters' destiny cannot be mitigated by behavior. Neither of the young lovers deserves to die, but they are destined by circumstances to be reunited only in death.

In Victor Seastrom's "Korkarlen," however, repentance is always an option. Destiny can be altered - and death deferred - through the characters' choices. Although scenes of the Phantom Carriage collecting souls are genuinely eerie, these horrific images of Death as the great leveler are compromised by Death's offer of redemption to the real monster of this tale, David Holm, a brutal drunk who, because of a perverse hatred of humanity, spreads tuberculosis and emotional misery to everyone he comes in contact with.

One New Year's Eve Holm is struck down in a fight with a drinking companion. As the first person to die on the stroke of midnight Holm must become the driver of the Phantom Carriage and collect souls during the new year. The Phantom Carriage, driven by an old acquaintance who had started Holm on his road to ruin, comes for his soul and takes him on a journey of self discovery. Along the way Holm sees the horror he has inflicted on his family and the people who tried to help him.

Perhaps my disappointment with the film's ending is a criticism of the Selma Lagerlöf novel on which the film is based. But I would have preferred to see David Holm unable to escape his destiny, and to see his repentance come too late to prevent his wife from poisoning his two children and herself, and to see Holm suffer for the consequences of his sins by being made to collect their souls. It would have been a fitting punishment and a horror more immense than witnessing the abuse he inflicted on others. In the film, however, the unalterable nature of destiny isn't the message; redemption is. The driver of the carriage allows Holm's spirit to return to his body, and he rescues his family in the nick of time. His repentance smacks of Scrooge's repentance in "A Christmas Carol."

If the trite and sentimental ending does not offend you, there is still much to admire in the film's images. The special effects are astonishing when measured by the standards of the day, and still hold up, which is more miraculous when you consider that these double exposures were created inside a hand-cranked camera. Also, the restored film on Tartan's new DVD looks fabulous.

a message worth conceiving

[dianachemeris · 10/10 · 11 April 2020]

It remind me of a tale from Christmass that we are all familiar. The phantom or spirit guiding the wreched soul through the times he did wrong when he could do right. It is worth mentioning the story makes you think about human activities and how each interaction is impacting the collective. Sort of a butterfly effect. A good deed can benefit many in the long run, and a bad deed can spoil already hurt people even worst. The prayer that is given in the end of the movie is important to put it in use every New Years Eve. Soul maturity is the upper goal of collective consiousness.

Last, I was impressed by the way spirit world was shown, gonna use this tip for sure.

Technically brilliant but narratively confusing

[Groverdox · 6/10 · 1 December 2017]

"Korkarlen", or "The Phantom Carriage", is a milestone in Swedish cinema. It was a favourite film of Ingmar Bergman, and featured ground breaking special effects to represent the supernatural, and a plot filled with unprecedented complications. All movie goers are familiar with flashbacks; this 1921 work uses flashbacks within flashbacks.

The film's superstition states that the last person to die on New Years Eve must spend the next year gathering souls for Death in a lonely carriage. Edit, a Salvation Army sister, lies on her death bed with one last wish: that David Holm, the man she prayed for, should come to see her so she can see if her prayers were answered. He is first visited by the ghost of Georges, a man who died last New Years Eve and is now gathering souls.

Along with flashbacks, the film makes liberal use of transparency of characters - and their carriage - to represent the afterlife. At one point we see the Phantom Carriage gliding over water to collect the soul of a man who has just drowned.

Death is represented by the "ghost", or transparent actor, rising from the prone body of the deceased, the same actor lying still and opaque. I'm not sure if this is the first movie to use this effect; if it is, it deserves recognition. It reminded me immediately of Patrick Swayze's "Ghost", made some 70 years later. This effect has served filmmakers well.

If all of this sounds confusing, unfortunately, that is because it is. I was well on board for "Korkarlen" for its first half. However, in the second I lost interest, tired of keeping up with its constant doubling back on itself. "Korkarlen" is an example of the phrase that we only know what is enough when we know what is more than enough. It pointed the way for special effects and flashback scenes, and perhaps also demonstrated why the latter should not be overused.

The Phantom Carriage moves slowly.

[st-shot · 5/10 · 6 August 2011]

It's easy to see where the great Swedish director Ingamar Bergman got his sense of humor in this film that informs in many ways his future work. Bergman was more than clear about Victor Seastrom's influence and The Phantom Carriage illustrates this with its stark death and redemption theme from the outset.

On New Year's Eve, Edit, an urban missionary worker lies dying from consumption. She makes a request to see a notorious drunkard David Holm ( Seastrom ) one more time but he refuses to honor her request. He opts instead to remain with his drunken pals and tell the story of The Phantom Carriage that impresses the last person to die in the year to go around to pick up the dead. When Holm rebuffs the entreaty of Edit's co-worker his bottle buddies beat him to death and much to his grief he gets the job of the collector's assistant.

The Phantom Carriage is one dark Christmas Carol. Filled with vices and virtue to the extreme it is a relentless treatise on pain, suffering and salvation with Seastrom's brutish unrepentant Holm blinded by drink and cynicism stewing in his own juices most of the way . Director Seastrom lays the dissipation on with a thick humorless brush with no let up and the gloom of this cautionary tale becomes monstrously oppressive and with it comes a repetitive monotony.

The impact on such Bergman's classics as The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries (Sjostom actually played the lead) is more than evident throughout but so is the overwhelming stoicism that slows The Phantom Carriage to a crawl much of the time.