För sin kärleks skull

A maelstrom of ticker-tape and trembling desire courses through Stiller’s Stockholm, where the velvet-lined boudoirs of the financial aristocracy echo with the clatter of collapsing quotations. Franz von Bierman—aristocrat by birth, gambler by reflex—has mortgaged not only bonds but the marrow of his lineage, wagering on phantom bulls until the bourse itself vomits his fortune back at him. In the chiaroscuro aftermath, creditors swarm like carrion crows, yet the true debt is moral: the promise he once etched into the palm of the ethereal Märta, her pulse once syncing with the flutter of his speculative triumphs. Now, as candelabras gutter and servants whisper behind gilded panels, Franz drifts through mirrored corridors where every reflection indicts him. Emmy Albiin’s Märta, equal parts Pre-Raphaelite martyr and proto-feminist Fury, refuses the role of collateral damage; she rewrites the ledger of affection, demanding payment in the only currency left—his metamorphosis. Meanwhile, Axel Janse’s leering bailiff and Victor Sjöström’s consumptive notary embody society’s twin jaws: law and entropy. Stiller cross-cuts between claustrophemic salons and the archipelago’s granite vastness, letting autumnal light slice across faces until skin itself seems a parchment of unpaid IOUs. When Franz, stripped of cravat and illusions, kneels on a fog-choked quay to beg forgiveness, the camera tilts up to reveal a cargo steamer bound for Montevideo—an iron ark of expatriate shame—while Märta’s gloved hand closes not around his throat but around the possibility that love might yet be solvent. The final shot—her silhouette dissolving into a throng of emigrants—leaves the spectator holding an unpaid emotional promissory note that accrues interest for a century.