"By 1920, Sjöström was at the peak of his career. He was eager to experiment with form, even if it meant tampering with the work of one of Sweden's most respected authors, the Nobel prize-winning Selma Lagerlöf. The story is shot through with puritan ideals of good old Selma, but Sjöström's daring technique diverts one from the moral issues." (Peter Cowie) Thematically, the film is basically a protest against moral degradation with Sjöström playing the shabby drunkard, David Holm. Holm is drinking with his companions in a wintry churchyard. They have a quarrel and he is knocked unconscious. In a dream-like stupor, Holm imagines he is forced to take over the driving of the phantom carriage. Holm's nightmare is interwoven with memories of his own soused past. Peter Cowie observes: "It sounds like dreary stuff. Yet The Phantom Carriage is a striking feat, for Sjöström uses as many as four images superimposed one on top of another, to create the impression that Holm rises from the dead, only to be claimed by Death's coachman. It also demonstrates that Julius Jaenzon was as brilliant a cinematographer in his time as Sven Nykvist is today." Add to this visual finesse, a startling and ingenious weave of flashbacks that even Selma Lagerlöf advised simplifying and you have what may be accounted the most ambitious of all Swedish silent films.