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A key film from Sweden's first golden age of filmmaking, Sir Arne's Treasure (Herr Arnes pengar) has long ranked among the most famous -- and famously hard-to-find -- classics of the silent era. Now restored by the Swedish Film Institute and featuring a magnificent orchestral score by Matti Bye and Fredrik Emilson, this landmark work by master filmmaker Mauritz Stiller can finally be seen in its glory.
In 16th-century Sweden, the lives of three Scottish mercenaries and an aging Swedish vicar and his family intersect, and in the unspeakable crime that results, a small coastal community is forever altered. As the three mercenaries
struggle to escape from the town, they find that nature has conspired against them -- all outbound ships are frozen in
the ice -- forcing them to remain until the tragic tale reaches its catastrophic conclusion.
Made at a time when Sweden was a dominating force in international cinema, Sir Arne's Treasure shows Mauritz Stiller at the peak of his filmmaking powers, working with Nobel Prize-winning author Selma Lagerlöf. Aided by the
pioneering cinematographer Julius Jaenzon (The Outlaw and His Wife), Stiller fills every frame with ice and snow
to emphasize the oppressiveness of the freezing conditions and the forbidding terrain. Rarely has winter seemed so
threatening, and rarely has the landscape of Sweden been used to such magnificent effect.
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