The Outlaw and His Wife

A masterpiece of the Swedish silent cinema, Victor Sjöström's THE OUTLAW AND HIS WIFE is a film of remarkable psychological complexity, which bore a profound influence on the work of Ingmar Bergman and Carl Theodor Dreyer. When a mysterious stranger (played by Sjöström) is hired on at a farm by its widowed owner (Edith Erastoff, who would later become Sjöström's wife),a romantic bond quickly forms. But the man's troubled past foils theirchances at happiness, and forces them to seek refuge in the nearbymountains. Sjöström's masterful use of landscape is visually anddramatically stunning, particularly in the film's latter half, as the couplebattles both their pursuers and nature itself, culminating in an unforgettable climax.