In the 1940s and 1950s, legendary Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer (The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Vampyr (1932)) directed a series of short documentaries focusing on national institutions such as the church and on safety warnings. Of these, They Caught the Ferry (1948) stands out.

Ostensibly a film warning of the dangers of speeding, Dreyer’s direction is of such a quality and has such an inventive spirit that it is transformed into a mini-masterpiece of pacing, structure and subtext. Dreyer is not known for his action – his films are characteristically stripped down affairs with paired back settings, make-up – anything that suggests artifice. His films focus instead on the subterranean emotions, the camera focusing with such intensity that it cracks the veneer of ego to expose the id of the subject matter.

They Caught the Ferry has little of this, but like the exception that proves the rule, this tight piece of tense action cinema demonstrates Dreyer’s real skill – not in condensing film conventions to expose the raw truth but rather recognising how the conventions work and how to condense them. The bulk of this film focuses on a speeding motorbike, repeated shots of the riders and the road, swerving in and out of traffic. Like a Hitchcock movie, we know something terrible is going to happen, so each moment becomes a fragment of almost unbearable drama. The final crash, when it happens, is all the more affecting as Dreyer brings a slice of mythological imagery to it, the car that causes the accident is driven by a sinister figure resembling death.

It’s only 11 minutes long, but the quality of the drama, the sense of speed and tension, makes me want to see Dreyer’s version of a Bourne film. Which I wasn’t expecting.