The stunning Lappland scenery and seeing Victor Sjöström made this one enjoyable for me, despite a little creakiness in the early going. The setup, actually told in a flashback, reminded me of Les Miserables in that a man (Sjöström) turns to theft out of poverty, but instead of the local parson forgiving him as in that work, he jails him instead. Perhaps there is commentary on the church in this, and the need to show a little kindness to the less fortunate, since everything that happens to this decent guy stems from that incident. Anyway, he breaks out of jail, finds work on a farm, and falls in love with the owner (Edith Erastoff), but his past is never far behind.
The film gets good and the drama increases when the pair flee to the mountains, where they live a rugged life and have a baby girl. There are several moments at a cliff that are quite tense, and one that seems hard to fathom (I mean, really hard to fathom). Maybe the film shows us what desperation will drive people to, aside from the theft - jealousy, turning on one another, and acts you'd never think possible. Set against the grand scenery of those timeless mountains and waterfalls though, the human struggle seems especially small, even when it is gripping.
The pace is quite good at 73 minutes - intertitles are kept to a minimum, and the story, while simple, moves along nicely. At times it feels like the psychological drama is as claustrophobic as the wilderness is wide open. The film is obviously a bit stiff to modern eyes, but it seems clear that for 1918, it was ahead of its time.
