rating:
(out of
4 stars)Sweden; 1921; aka The Phantom Carriage/The Phantom Chariot
Directed by Victor Sjöström; produced by Charles Magnusson; written by Victor Sjöström
Starring Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg, Astrid Holm, Concordia Selander, Lisa Lundholm
This early silent ghost story uses complex storytelling - flashbacks within flashbacks - and admirable special effects to uplift an otherwise standard dramatic feature as seen during the silent era. Admittedly, many of those are great too, but 'Körkarlen', or 'The Phantom Carriage', is able to do something more. Director Victor Sjöström gives some unexpected turns during the flashbacks and he himself plays a character which was probably the most vile up to that point.
Sjöström is David Holm, a drunk who dies very close to twelve o'clock on New Year's Eve. The legend goes that the last person to die on this evening will have to ride the Phantom Carriage for a year to collect all dead souls. The person becomes Death, in a way. After his death he is picked up and in flashbacks we get to see how the people around him have been affected by his behaviour, leading up to present time where the last driver of the Carriage shows him these people.
Among them we find a Salvation Army nurse, who opens the film. She has become ill, even dying, after fixing a jacket for the drifter Holm was. He does not appreciate her work. We get to see his family, wife and two children, living an unhappy life around the drunk and violent Holm. In his fall he takes along his friends around him. Sjöström is able to create real drama in these scenes, and in between some real horror, in the traditional sense of the word, with the Carriage and the dead people driving it.
Numerous classic scenes appear. The way the dead souls are taken from the bodies is occasionally still done the same, only with better effects. And later in the film Sjöström shows us where Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson found their inspiration for the famous "Here's Johnny!"-scene from 'The Shining'. The same kind of excitement comes from this scene. More than Nicholson, Sjöström underplays his villain, which makes him even more creepy. This kind of calm acting is not found in many silent classics.
'Körkarlen' belongs to the greatest silent classics out there, an inspiration for Ingmar Bergman. Bergman actually used Sjöström for the lead in his masterpiece 'Smultronstället' and the comparisons are there. As horror it may not work on a modern audience, it has its creepy atmosphere. The dramatic moments have more impact though, especially with Sjöström willing to push limits. This is early cinema close to as good as it gets.