(KÖRKARLEN, Victor Sjöström, Sweden 1921, 90 min.)

One of the towering achievements of silent cinema, director Sjöström’s (The Wind, He Who Gets Slapped) allegory is based on a Swedish legend that the last person to die each year must drive the chariot that collects the dead. When an inebriated brawler dies at midnight on New Year’s Eve, he is given the chance to review and correct his life’s errors. Shot entirely on elaborate studio sets, The Phantom Chariot employs a complex and innovative flashback structure and a haunting, poetic style of double exposures and superimpositions that blend with the universality of its theme. Live piano by Philip C. Carli.