Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage)

The drunkard David Holm has an accident on New Year's Eve, and relives the upright life he led before drink ruined him. He is finally reformed after seeing the carriage of death. Sjöström tells this simple moralistic folk tale with a brilliant array of flashbacks and eerie special effects. Shot mainly outdoors, with a fine lead performance by the director himself, it is widely considered to be his greatest Swedish film. It was mainly due to its success (and the decline of the Swedish cinema industry) that he found himself working in Hollywood as Victor Seastrom a few years later. The film was remade in France in 1939 and in Sweden in 1958. (Foreign Film Guide)