The Phantom Carriage (no 38)

by Allan Fish

(Sweden 1921 95m) DVD2

Aka. Korkarlen; Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness

Death rides by

p  Charles Magnusson  d/w  Victor Sjöstrom  novel  Selma Lagerlöf  ph  Julius Jaenzon  art  Alexander Bako, Axel Esbensen

Victor Sjöstrom (David Holm), Hilda Bergstrom (Mrs Holm), Tore Svennberg (Georges), Astrid Holm (Sister Edit), Concordia Selander (Sister’s Edith’s Mother), Olof Âas (Korkarlen), Einar Axelson (Holm’s brother), Nils Aréhn (Fängelsepredkanten), Lisa Lundholm (Sister Maria), Tor Weijden (Gustaffson),

“There is a reaper and his name is death” we were continually told in Berlin Alexanderplatz.  Well, here’s the first appearance of the Grim One in person, a film whose influence still reverberates in Scandinavia.  Ingmar Bergman made a point of watching it every New Years Eve and one can easily see why.  The source of so much of his early inspiration is here (where would The Seventh Seal have been without it?), its director Sjöstrom given one grand last hurrah by Bergman as old Professor Isak Borg in Wild Strawberries.

            “The one to whom something fatal happens on New Year’s Eve is forced to drive the phantom carriage.  The coachman is no ordinary driver.  He serves a strict master, and his name is Death…”  So drunkard David Holm is told the legend that whosoever is last to be killed before midnight strikes on New Year’s Eve will be doomed to wander as driver of Death’s carriage, picking up the dead for the next year.  Needless to say he laughs at this fantastic notion, but then gets himself knocked senseless in a drunken brawl and is left for dead.  At that moment, Death’s carriage rolls up and advises him of his predicament and he is given the opportunity to see how his sins have impacted on those around him. 

            Back in the early nineties Redemption Video had become something of a cult in the UK.  They specialised in what could, at best, be described as schlock and, at worst, as total pig swill.  Their repertoire of titles ranged from soft core porn to cheap seventies horror.  Yet amongst the dross, a few blooms tried to grow.  Prints of Nosferatu and M may have been grossly inferior fifth rate bastardisations of the modern restorations, but they were welcome at the time, but better still was a release for The Phantom Carriage in a lovely tinted restored print.  To see it was to double take like James Finlayson, and it was with immense pleasure that I finally sat down to view this gem of the Swedish cinema.  An hour and a half later I was an ardent admirer.

            Looked back upon after over eighty years, Carriage seems more and more like a masterpiece, a film of immense technical virtuosity and immense spirit.  It came at the height of the first golden period of the Svenskfilmindustri, in amongst such well regarded films as Sir Arne’s Treasure, Erotikon, The Outlaw and His Wife and Gösta Berlings Saga, but stands out today as the best of them.  And if Sjöstrom’s later Hollywood masterpieces, He Who Gets Slapped and The Wind, may be better known now, Carriage is by no means inferior to them.  Once you adjust to its playful almost mythic tone, it’s a joy to watch from start to finish.  As the seemingly doomed Holm, Sjöstrom gives arguably his greatest silent performance.  Like Dickens’ Scrooge, when shown the error of his ways, this time thinking it too late, he’s given one last chance when begging to save his wife, who is about to take both her own life and that of her children.  “God, let my soul ripen before it is harvested” he cries up to the heavens, and we all breathe a huge sigh of relief. 

            The most memorable aspect of the film for me, however, is the truly extraordinary photography and effects.  Jaenzon’s use of superimposition to achieve a ghostly effect is groundbreaking and so wonderfully simple.  The first sighting of the coachman picking up yet another victim, as if from his very body, is one of silent cinema’s great images, matched by shots of the carriage passing over the waves of the sea and the iconic shot of it pulling over to collect Sjöstrom.  If Sjöstrom was the mastermind behind this work of art, Jaenzon proved himself a master artist and one of the great forgotten cameramen of the silent cinema.