Körkarlen

Ajomies / The Phantom Carriage / La Charrette fantôme. SE 1920. PC: Svensk Filmindustri. D: Victor Sjöström. Based on the novel by Selma Lagerlöf (1912). DP: Julius Jaenzon. Revisited in a Cinemateket / Svenska Filminstitutet pre-Desmet print, with beautiful toned effects, with e-subtitles in Finnish by Lena Talvio. 1937 m /16 fps/ 106 min. Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 27 Nov 2008. - I revisited the first 30 min. The pre-Desmet print looks better in Orion. The magic light and the vivid expressions become visible. - The deathbed of the Salvation Army nurse. The utter despair of the drunkard's wife. The desolation of the poor home. The three drunkards in the graveyard. The lit clockface. The pain, the sorrow, the horror. The two vignettes illustrating the driver's work: the nobleman putting the bullet through his brain, the victim of the boatwreck being collected from the bottom of the sea. The restless sea. I often include this film in the best horror films, but sometimes they strike it, as it is not a genre picture. But for me, horror means the encounter with personified death and personified evil, and this film has both. Victor Sjöström bravely and convincingly personifies bottomless evil, him who can even infect his own children with the lethal cough.

Macario

Roberto Gavaldón: Macario (MX 1960) starring Ignacio Lopez Tarso as Macario.

/ / MX / 1960 / Gavaldón, Roberto / fantastique
Macario. PC: Clasa Films Mundiales. P: Armando Orive Alba. D: Roberto Gavaldón. Based on the story by B. Traven. DP: Gabriel Figueroa. M: Raúl Lavista. CAST: Ignacio Lopez Tarso (Macario), Pina Pellicer (Macario’s wife), Enrique Lucero (Death), José Galvez (The Devil), José Luis Jiménez (God). 90’. B&w Academy. Print had bad definition. Viewed in Helsinki, SEA, Cinema Orion, Thursday 12 March 1998. *** It takes places on the Day of the Dead. The poor wood-cutter has been starving as long as he can remember. As his wife gives him a whole turkey to eat he meets Death, who gives him a vision in matters of life and death. As a miracle man he gets in trouble with the Inquisition. The final confrontation takes place in Death’s hall of candles. It is an effective sequence resembling Fritz Lang’s Der müde Tod.