Beautifully made ghost story full of deathbed drama, sad-eyed spirits and the kind of coincidences that we don’t mind from fairy tales and folklore. The last sinner to die before midnight (Swedish time) on New Year’s Eve spends the next year as Death’s little helper, carrying the newly deceased to the afterlife in a ghostly carriage. When a drunken jerk dies in a fight, his spiritual escort to eternity turns out to be an old friend. They’ve got a lot to talk about, including the drunk’s misspent life and
the dying nun who tried to help him. Bleak flashbacks follow, along with some of the smoothest double-exposure special effects on film at the time. Like A Christmas Carol (and It’s a Wonderful Life, for that matter), this blends the mysticism of the holiday season with a character who’s compelled by supernatural forces to take stock. The mood is ethereal even with those gray Scandinavian clouds on top. Ingmar Bergman famously loved it.