In The Phantom Carriage, director Victor Sjöström plays David Holm, a heartless unrepentant rascal who receives two summons one New Year’s midnight. The first is from a dying nun who showed him the most undeserved act of mercy he ever received; the second is from the phantom who drives Death’s titular carriage. As the film shows flashbacks of Holm’s wasted life, the alternation between red-orange and blue tinting sets up a dichotomy between warmth and cold, life and death, damnation and mercy, that permeates the film. The mix of fantasy and morality tale plays out as incredibly as the special effects of the wispy transparent spectres, which float over the screen like the fleeting intangible offers of mercy and redemption.
—Evan Cogswell