Sir Arne's Treasure (1919)
Directed by Mauritz Stiller

Film Review

Mauritz Stiller is best known as the man who created one of cinema's most enduring screen legends, Greta Garbo, not only mentoring her but also giving her the role that made her an international star in his 1924 film The Saga of Gosta Berling.  Stiller was, however, far more than an astute talent spotter and mentor; he was one of the finest filmmakers Sweden has ever produced, a name that deserves to rank along side his compatriots Victor Sjöström and Ingmar Bergman.  By the time he met Garbo, Stiller was among the most highly regarded directors at Svensk Filmindustri, Sweden's foremost film production company, with a string of masterpieces already under his belt.  Among these is the absolutely stunning Sir Arne's Treasure (a.k.a. Herr Arnes pengar), a hauntingly atmospheric period piece, of the kind that Svensk excelled in throughout Sweden's first golden age of filmmaking (1913-1924).

Sir Arne's Treasure is an inspired adaptation of the popular novella The Treasure at Svenska Biografteatern by Selma Lagerlöf, the Nobel Prize winning author whose novels were frequently adapted for Swedish cinema (Stiller's The Saga of Gosta Berling and Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage being the best known examples).  Lagerlöf's magical romanticism may have been popular in literary form at the time but it appeared dated for contemporary Swedish cinema, which was showing an increasing drift towards rigorously naturalistic drama.  This tension between two very different modes of expression can be felt in Stiller's Sir Arne's Treasure, which plays down the supernatural aspects of Lagerlöf's novel and instead accentuates the power of the natural world to determine an individual's fate.  Stiller's striking use of landscape - rivalled only by John Ford in his finest westerns - powerfully evokes the immense natural forces that shape our lives.  Rarely in a film do the protagonists appear so vulnerable and so helpless in deciding their own destinies.  They are mere specks of dust in the bitterest of snowstorms, entirely at the mercy of the elements - as we all are, to a greater or lesser extent, in our own lives.

The film begins and ends with two of the most striking images in Swedish cinema.  The opening shot of horsemen traversing a vast expanse of snow and ice is mirrored by the solemn funeral procession that ends the film.  The shot of a fish hawker making his way on a sleigh across the ice anticipates the most spectacular set piece in The Saga of Gosta Berling.  Another shot of a ship trapped helplessly in the ice is a potent visual metaphor for nature's power over man.  Again and again, Stiller, assisted by Sweden's legendary cinematographer Julius Jaenzon, reminds us of the pathetic puniness of man when set against the overwhelming mightiness of the world he inhabits, a godlike supremacy that endlessly mocks us with its inviolable rules and total disregard for human happiness.

It is not only the external forces of nature that the protagonists have to contend with, they are also prey to internal forces which prove to be just as destructive, just as uncontrollable.  The three Scottish mercenaries who are so jovially introduced at the start of the film are, a short while later, shown to be ruthless killers who murder all but one member of a family.  We are unable to decide whether they are bad men.  They hardly seem to be responsible for their actions, as they are driven to extreme measures by extreme circumstances, the need to survive in the harshest of environments.  By a cruel twist of fate, the one family member they fail to slay, a young woman named Elsalill, ends up falling passionately in love with one of their number, the most likeable rogue of the bunch, Sir Archie.  That these two individuals end up being drawn together by the most mysterious of forces, namely love, hardly surprises us.  What is surprising is how Elsalill remains true to her love, and even risks her own life to save Sir Archie, when she realises that she is one of the three who massacred her family.  It is guilt - powerfully visualised via the haunting vision of her dead foster sister - that compels Elsalill to denounce Sir Archie, but it is a more powerful emotion - love - that forces her to act to save him, with predictably tragic consequences.

In both narrative and cinematographic terms, Sir Arne's Treasure is a film that is years ahead of its time.  There is probably not a single film made in France or America of this era that is as visually compelling and as imaginatively crafted.  Stiller's use of camera movement is particularly impressive, drawing the spectator into the fabric of the film and emphasising the dynamic forces that are play.  The landscapes are so imposing and expressive, literally spilling out of every frame, that they become a key player in the drama - not a mere backdrop but a character of formidable proportions.  The snow and ice are so prevalent, encroaching on virtually every scene as though they were part of some malevolent, living entity, that you can hardly avoid feeling chilled to the core as you watch the film.  Sir Arne's Treasure is a thing of inordinate beauty, one of the most expressively poetic works of the silent era of cinema, but it is also endowed with a harrowing primordial brutality, reminding us just how small and inconsequential man is in the grand scheme of things.

Film Synopsis

In 16th century Sweden, King Johan III decrees that the Scottish mercenaries who are plotting against him are to be expelled from the country and their commanders incarcerated.  Three of the latter - Sir Philip, Sir Donald and Sir Archie - manage to escape from their prison and hasten to the coast, where they must wait for the ice to melt before they can find a ship that will take them back to Scotland.  On the way, they invade the house of an aged vicar, Sir Arne, slaughtering almost the entire household and escaping with a small fortune in coins stored in a chest.  Rumour has it that this bounty was looted from the monasteries and that dire misfortune will come to whoever possesses it.  The only survivor of the massacre is the vicar's foster daughter, Elsalill, who is taken in by a kindly fish hawker named Torarin.  Although she is still haunted by her memory of her family's brutal murder, Elsalill does not recognise Sir Archie when she next sees him.  He has spent some of his ill gotten gain on fine clothes and resembles a nobleman.  Within no time, the two young people have fallen deeply in love and Sir Archie intends taking Elsalill back with him to his home country.  But overhearing a conversation between Sir Archie and his friends Elsalill suddenly realises that these are the same three men who attacked and killed her foster family.  Her desire for justice compels her to report this fact to the authorities, but then she has second thoughts and cannot prevent herself from warning Sir Archie that his arrest is imminent.  Before the day is out, Sir Arne's accursed treasure will live up to its terrible reputation...