The Phantom Carriage

We often encounter the works of Selma Lagerlöf, the Nobel Prize winner in Literature, in cinema. Until the end of the golden era, Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller were the most prominent individuals to adapt her work. Sjöström also discovered her for the film medium and often played the lead in her stories. Although I have grown much more fond of Stiller's competing projects Sir Arne's Treasure and The Saga of Gösta Berling, The Phantom Carriage cannot, of course, be completely ignored. It’s a suggestive modern film that manages to pull the viewer along and give them a heart attack from more intense terror than any of today's trash. The film is about the atmosphere and fascination with the ancient story of one of the first human fears. (05/16/2012)

In terms of atmosphere, visual effects and its very groundbreaking story structure, there is nothing to fault considering the year this film came out. The chilling story full of mystical and fantastical images is told in a very original way and, together with its very depressing premise, it manages to keep our full attention, although the monotonous (but not unsuccessful) music starts to put us to sleep after a while and a few scenes have no narrative value at all – the line of the remembrance of the hero's evil deeds, in particular, lacks the poetry and imagination of the rest of the film. Nevertheless, this is an important work of cinema, making great use of minimalist means to evoke very strong emotional and thought experiences. Plus, I finally saw where the axe breaking through a door first appeared in cinema – a familiar scene from the cult classic The Shining... :)) 80% (04/15/2014)

I am struggling to understand how it is possible that this film did not appear in the publication "101 Horrors You Must See Before You Die". It absolutely deserves a place here, because the atmosphere presented is truly unbelievably dark. It is the ancestor of dark horror films and can easily shine alongside such pieces as "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" or "Nosferatu the Vampire". I am glad that I still learned about this film and that I had the chance to watch those beautiful shots, because the double exposure has never been more perfect. The rising of the soul from the body, while the body still lies there, just looks perfect. The interesting storytelling style - retrospective with deeper retrospection - only confirms the significance and uniqueness of this Swedish masterpiece. (01/31/2014)