109: The Phantom Carriage (a.k.a. The Phantom Chariot; a.k.a. Körkarlen)

            I think what’s most surprising about Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage (1921) is that it is only ostensibly a horror film.  Behind its dark imagery and its special effects – state of the art for the time period – lays a film that is both a lurid social drama and a vivid depiction of the trials of the human soul.  As a motion picture it represented a step forward both technically and thematically, and it put Swedish cinema on the map, becoming an international success. 

            Ironically, this depiction of the murky moments between this life and the next may have had the church to thank for its popular triumph.  Local censorship boards, often run by the religious establishment of the day, were leery about editing material of the afterlife out, fearing legal action from author Selma Lagerlöf, upon whose novel the screenplay was based.  They let the picture slide, deciding that its message about the moral degradation and social ills of alcohol outweighed the potential harm of its depiction of the supernatural.  The international temperance movement was at its height and elements of this picture fit right in to the social cause of the day.

            The complicated story, which includes flashbacks within flashbacks, focuses on the exploits of the self-destructive alcoholic David Holm (Sjöström).  On New Years Eve he sits in a churchyard, drinking and telling ghost stories with two friends.  He relates the legend of the phantom carriage, the cart driven by the death’s minion, the reaper.  The story was told to him by a friend who claimed that the reaper collects the souls of the dead, waiting to be replaced by the one that expires at the stroke of the New Year.  The previous New Year the man who first told the story died himself. 

            Dying this New Year, on the other end of the city, is a nun who has prayed for Holm in his wickedness throughout the year.  She took pity on him the previous winter when he tried to overcome his addiction.  When he eventually rejected her treatment, she promised to pray for him over the year.  Now she has sent a messenger for him, so that she can see if her prayers have been answered before she expires.  When an argument results in his own death as the clock strikes twelve, Holm is faced with his obligation to the reaper and to his ailing former caretaker.  Coming face to face with the phantom carriage and its eerie coachman, he will be forced to account for his sins.

            As a narrative, The Phantom Carriage can be difficult to follow.  It’s a complicated story with fewer subtitles than most silent pictures.  It takes some effort to engage the plot, but the special effects make this film worth the exertion.  Using expertly choreographed double exposures Sjöström creates a luminous and transparent depth to the ghostly vehicle and its driver, and these scenes compliment nicely the element of social commentary the film brings to the table.  Watching this movie I was reminded of numerous pairings of horror and social issues that it preceded, realizing that the best of the horror genre – the original Halloween (1978) and Romero’s Living Dead series – always have something more to say than “Boo!”

Language: Silent (Subtitles in English)

Runtime: 75 Minutes*

Available @ Youtube.com

Grade: 3 Hats Off

* Different listings based on what national version of the film you see.  The 1001 text lists 93 minutes.  I suspect the version which Sjöström originally intended or something as close as possible, will be available in high quality home video soon, with a Criterion release of this picture scheduled sometime next month.  I’m looking forward to it.