Fri 11 Sep 2015
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: THE PHANTOM CHARIOT (Sweden, 1921).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews , Silent films[4] Comments
THE PHANTOM CHARIOT. Svensk Filmindustri, Sweden, 1921. Also known as The Phantom Carriage. Swedish title: Körkarlen. Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Astrid Holm, Tore Svennberg. Director: Victor Sjöström. Shown at Cinefest 18, Liverpool NY, March 1998.
Victor Sjöström is not only a pioneering and notable Swedish film director and actor, but the acknowledged mentor of Ingmar Bergman, and for about four years, from 1924, [as Victor Seastrom] a successful Hollywood director of Lon Chaney in He Who Gets Slapped, Lillian Gish in The Scarlet Letter and The Wind, and Greta Garbo in The Divine Woman.
The Phantom Chariot is his best-known Swedish film and a classic of the horror film. According to legend, a person who dies at midnight on New Year’s Eve is condemned to drive Death’s chariot for a year, gathering in souls.
In part a moralistic drama (a drunken, abusive husband is redeemed by his vision of Death’s chariot), it is the recurrent visions of the chariot that linger in the memory, a fantasy haunting an austere, realistically filmed narrative.
September 11th, 2015 at 6:01 pm
Walter, I found this a bit slow for my tastes (I can see the influence on Bergman) but you’re right about the haunting images.
September 11th, 2015 at 6:35 pm
Yes, this was an interesting film that wasn’t truly a favorite, unfortunately.
My favorite Sjostrom so far is “The Outlaw and His Wife”. It takes place in 18th Century Iceland – then a wild frontier. It’s rather like a Western, only set in Iceland. It’s utterly gripping.
September 11th, 2015 at 11:43 pm
I found this one a bit too slow and heavy handed as well, but the images are startling. It is a shame the director could not have stuck with the images and the element of fantasy instead of tying them to what even then was a bit heavy handed and all too Scandinavian for my taste.
I see the influence on Bergman, and recognize the work of a great filmmaker, but in all honesty I would rather watch pieces of this than the whole thing.
September 13th, 2015 at 10:06 am
I’ve not seen the film again since I wrote that review in 1998, but I’ll certainly want to return to it to see what my present-day reaction will be.
And I certainly agree with Mike that “The Outlaw and His Wife” is a superb film. I had a laser disc of the film, which I transferred to DVD, and it’s time to return to that also, not to confirm my remembered enthusiasm for the film but experience it again in a period in which I have seen very few films that have excited me.