I can't exactly recall where I heard about this movie from but the title alone was all I needed and the story that unfolds wasn't really what I expected. It at first seemed about a woman with consumption waiting for death but then we get an inverse of A Christmas Carol where the spectral driver of the eponymous carriage comes to collect a dead drunk and shows him the life he threw away and the mistakes he made that has links with the dying lady but he's already dead so he can't change it, before it naturally resolves to a happy ending. The movie is close to two hours long so you get familiar with these characters and their histories, seeing them go from loving and caring almost idyllic lifestyles to such depressing depths. It is a horror movie but not quite in the typical way you would think, true the phantom carriage is a proper spooky visual but it's almost more an existential horror. I mean imagine you die or are near death and you have to confront a life's worth of regret, seeing what your actions have wrought that have hurt other people's lives, to be helpless and succumbing to a sickness whether it be something as banal as liquor or something as serious as pneumonia with no real chance to heal, that's pretty fucking horrific to my eyes. And you are stuck with this bastard of a character, played by the director Victor Sjöström himself no less, through the majority of the film as he just becomes this loathsome man who has to own up for his choices and it's a pretty decent performance. Astrid Holm as the Salvation Army nurse Edit is the real victim here and played to tragic beauty, just someone trying to help where they can who is almost cursed with sickness makes it eerily clear that people have lives out of your orbit, she really is the light in such a dark film. The driver of the carriage also played by Victor due to the lore presented that if someone should die at midnight on New Year's Eve they must take the reins of the carriage is an interesting presence, keeping the hooded robe and scythe from the Grim Reaper yet somewhat personable as he lays someone's life out before them. He feels appropriately intangible and someone you could never fight, it's a more lowkey potrayal of Death but a good one nevertheless. The production is also pretty simple too with minimal sets that are reused thoroughly throughout, with a contemporary time period instead of a period piece set centuries ago which I think is awesome cause that means you get to see just a teeny bit of 1920s Sweden, the dark shadows and warmly lit interiors are very nice and the telling of a ghost story around a fire is as classic as classic can get. I can see the film being very life affirming to some with a message imploring others that it's never too late for love or forgiveness until your dying day, but it does leave you with more awareness of your own presence in the world. I quite liked it, it's not a great film or a shining example of silent cinema but a well told story with a strong message, and hey it's not everyday I can talk about a foreign silent film so I can dig it. I give it 2.5 stars, 7/10, and next week we got a little grab bag of movies so stay tuned.
Showing posts with label Astrid Holm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Astrid Holm. Show all posts
Friday, October 9, 2026
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Haxan
Easily the strangest documentary I've ever seen.
Haxan also known as Witchcraft Through The Ages is a 1922 silent film made in Sweden not so much chronicling the history and changing ethos of witches and magic, but kind of a dive into more or less the oppression and tactics used to put accused witches on "trial" with some bits and ends of education on practices of witchcraft. And it's all done in a very surreal way, the film is split into 7 parts but the title cards a staple of silent cinema are written like the actual director is talking to us the audience, about how he found information and conveying it through the miracle of film. He even levels the fourth wall not once or twice, but thrice! Showing footage of one of his actresses legit submitting to thumbscrews and even cracking a joke about it, one of his actresses playing several roles in the last section of film which he himself disclosed, and one of his actresses confiding in him that they have seen the devil which was pretty potent to witness. It is undoubtedly an odd juxtaposition with the soundtrack being rather cheery and upbeat throughout, with notable examples being Danse Macabre and Moonlight Sonata, when clearly the subject material is a bit grim. Speaking of grim, the set design even when set on holy ground looks very eerie and I suppose rightfully so since the majority of the film takes place in the middle ages. You get some proper old timey education in this too, about how people viewed the Earth and stars, how people found evidence of witches which.....kinda seems like witchcraft to my eyes just sayin', how individuals who were pretty much trying to further the field of science were construed as practitioners of witchcraft, and my personal favorite back in the olden times to pretty much sign up for witchery and devil worship you had to kiss Satan's ass. Yeah. So if anyone calls you a kiss ass they firmly believe you consort with Lucifer. This has been another The More You Know. They still kinda fall in that notion that witches do witch stuff nekkid, this is because most books on witchcraft were written by men. Very sexually conflicted, church going, God fearing men so instead of asking the weird girl out for a date just torch her alive at the stake to purge those sexual urges. Be thankful for the decade you were born in people. The good news is the movie does not condone witch hunts or horrific torturing of women, but merely attempts to educate with an open more forward thinking mind and I'm honestly curious how well that went down in the early 20s. It's an imaginative sophisticated film in terms of special effects, the wraith like images of witches flying couldn't not have been the inspiration for the imagery of Night On Bald Mountain from Fantasia, all the costumes for the demons and Satan are obvious costumes but it still works very well in the movie, and can come off as creepy, there's even some proto-stop motion effects, talk about advanced. I'm fairly positive this is the pure bones of what people think the devil looks like, pointy ears, horns of ram and also protruding from the forehead, tongue constantly in a state of movement, all I was missing was a tail shot and he was played by the director too! So visuals are pretty strong even if not prevalent throughout, and while this is probably the longest silent film I've ever seen going for almost 2 hours, I view it as a piece of history which strangely is the purpose of the film in a way, so bravo for that. I know there is a sound version with narration and a jazz score which I believe hacks the movie down to just a bit over an hour, I didn't get my hands on that one so no notes there. Overall, it's a very interesting piece of cinema and history and while not scary it has something unique to bring to the table and no doubt shocked a good deal of people in 1922. I give it 3 stars, 7.5/10, new movie once more next time and not a horror either. Boooo!! Well, you can't win em' all. So hail Santa, oh f***ing hell I spelled it wrong nevermind, and have a lovely day.
Haxan also known as Witchcraft Through The Ages is a 1922 silent film made in Sweden not so much chronicling the history and changing ethos of witches and magic, but kind of a dive into more or less the oppression and tactics used to put accused witches on "trial" with some bits and ends of education on practices of witchcraft. And it's all done in a very surreal way, the film is split into 7 parts but the title cards a staple of silent cinema are written like the actual director is talking to us the audience, about how he found information and conveying it through the miracle of film. He even levels the fourth wall not once or twice, but thrice! Showing footage of one of his actresses legit submitting to thumbscrews and even cracking a joke about it, one of his actresses playing several roles in the last section of film which he himself disclosed, and one of his actresses confiding in him that they have seen the devil which was pretty potent to witness. It is undoubtedly an odd juxtaposition with the soundtrack being rather cheery and upbeat throughout, with notable examples being Danse Macabre and Moonlight Sonata, when clearly the subject material is a bit grim. Speaking of grim, the set design even when set on holy ground looks very eerie and I suppose rightfully so since the majority of the film takes place in the middle ages. You get some proper old timey education in this too, about how people viewed the Earth and stars, how people found evidence of witches which.....kinda seems like witchcraft to my eyes just sayin', how individuals who were pretty much trying to further the field of science were construed as practitioners of witchcraft, and my personal favorite back in the olden times to pretty much sign up for witchery and devil worship you had to kiss Satan's ass. Yeah. So if anyone calls you a kiss ass they firmly believe you consort with Lucifer. This has been another The More You Know. They still kinda fall in that notion that witches do witch stuff nekkid, this is because most books on witchcraft were written by men. Very sexually conflicted, church going, God fearing men so instead of asking the weird girl out for a date just torch her alive at the stake to purge those sexual urges. Be thankful for the decade you were born in people. The good news is the movie does not condone witch hunts or horrific torturing of women, but merely attempts to educate with an open more forward thinking mind and I'm honestly curious how well that went down in the early 20s. It's an imaginative sophisticated film in terms of special effects, the wraith like images of witches flying couldn't not have been the inspiration for the imagery of Night On Bald Mountain from Fantasia, all the costumes for the demons and Satan are obvious costumes but it still works very well in the movie, and can come off as creepy, there's even some proto-stop motion effects, talk about advanced. I'm fairly positive this is the pure bones of what people think the devil looks like, pointy ears, horns of ram and also protruding from the forehead, tongue constantly in a state of movement, all I was missing was a tail shot and he was played by the director too! So visuals are pretty strong even if not prevalent throughout, and while this is probably the longest silent film I've ever seen going for almost 2 hours, I view it as a piece of history which strangely is the purpose of the film in a way, so bravo for that. I know there is a sound version with narration and a jazz score which I believe hacks the movie down to just a bit over an hour, I didn't get my hands on that one so no notes there. Overall, it's a very interesting piece of cinema and history and while not scary it has something unique to bring to the table and no doubt shocked a good deal of people in 1922. I give it 3 stars, 7.5/10, new movie once more next time and not a horror either. Boooo!! Well, you can't win em' all. So hail Santa, oh f***ing hell I spelled it wrong nevermind, and have a lovely day.
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