With almost eight hundred scenes, Sir Arne's Treasure found Stiller at the peak of his artistry. The dramatic demands of his script, gleaned from Lagerlöf's novel, place the development of character in a subordinate position. This is cinema freeing itself of literary stylization as evidenced by the abruptness of the heavily textual intertitles. An epic tragedy, the film deals with a conspiracy against a 16th century king's Scottish mercenaries. The marauding soldiers of fortune seize a hostage, Elsalill (played by the gossamer Mary Johnson), in their dire flight to the coast. Peter Cowie says of Sir Arne's Treasure, "It plays as a tragedy in the fatalistic tradition of the Swedish cinema, but it also hints at psychological motives and effects. The pace never lets up, yet Stiller is always creating brief interludes in which he can capture the darker, supernatural rhythms of the tale...while Stiller's flair for the grand gesture enhances the production at every level." The film's final scene of a funeral procession of black-robed women winding its way across the ice forever links human fragility to an indifferent universe.