The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection | Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot

The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection | Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot | Works on many levels

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The Seventh Seal -...

	The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot Criterion, 1999 average customer review:based on 182 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Guaranteed to be one of the most thought-provoking films you've ever watched

There is little a reviewer can say about Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film DET SJUNDE INSEGLET ("The Seventh Seal") that hasn't already been said. Its plot of a knight playing chess with Death has been so widely alluded to or parodied that it securely has a place in the canon of classic films, and enough praise has been heaped on it that it's quite obviously a masterpiece.

In spite of the inevitability of repetition, the film invites effusive comment. The struggles of the knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) to find meaning in his doomed life stands in the spotlight for most viewers on the first run throug, but Bergman's script is of such depth that there's always more thought-provoking facets to be found. Block is gripped by an existential crisis at the thought of death. His squire Jons (Gunnar Björnstrand) and the traveling couple and acting partners Jof and Mia (Nils Poppe and Bibi Andersson), on the other hand, each react differently to the mortal fate common to all. Which one should the viewer identify with? Or is it possible to find some other way of confronting the inevitable? Bergman claims that filming DET SJUNDE INSEGLET let him find peace, and if the film won't give comfort to all, it surely confronts all with a question that must be answered.

Acting here is of the highest order. Gunnar Bjornstrand was commonly cast in severe, upright roles, for example as a priest in Bergman's later chamber film NATTVARDSGAESTERNA ("Winter Light"). Here, however, he plays a bawdy commoner who lives for wine, women, and song. While Bengt Ekerot generally continues the traditional portrayal of Death as a dark, threatening character, he adds just the right amount of droll humour to the role to comment on the Knight's search for meaning in an absurd world.

And the climax, where the straightforward narrative fades and the theoretical musings of each character are made real, the Knight praying in torment and the Squire acting as his foil one last time but more convincingly than ever... well, it's a tour de force. One of the most memorable films I've ever seen, just like for so many of the rest of the reviewers here, DET SJUNDE INSEGLET is a must-see film.

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Works on many levels

In this most famous of Bergman's films, a very young Max von Sydow plays a disillusioned knight returning from the Holy Land to find a country ravaged by the Black Death. Despite all he sees, he cannot believe that life is without meaning, and he searches for God in an increasingly chaotic world. Besides the obvious themes of life and death, one can look at this film from a religious point of view. The Church has stepped into the void created by the breakdown of civil society, and offers the people something to cling to in the chaos. In scenes of breathtaking cruelty, flagellants roam the countryside atoning for their sins; a young girl is burned as a witch; a seminarian steals a silver bracelet from a dead woman and then attempts to rape a young girl he catches watching nearby. The tortured knight watches all this with increasing horror, believing that God has deserted man but refusing to accept it. In the one scene of beauty and peace, the knight comes upon a family of traveling players, who offer him a simple welcome, and he sits on a hillside with them in the warm sun drinking fresh milk and eating wild strawbwerries (a Bergman favorite). One of the knight's realizations at the end is that salvation comes only through acts of mercy and kindness to fellow men, and by saving this family he redeems himself. Bergman presents us with a bleak view of the world, and a particularly bleak view of established religion, but offers hope at the end.

This isn't an entertaining film in any sense of the word, and it is hard to watch at times. People with no memory of black and white may find it odd to watch, but the bleakness is part of the story. This movie is an important part of film history, and timeless.

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Masterpiece Theater

This 1957 masterpiece launched Ingmar Bergman from a provincial writer-director into well-deserved international fame. His actors, particularly Max von Sydow, accompanied him on his journey of fame and choreographing thought-provoking films that challenge current notions of the meaning of life - what role does religion play (to terrorize its believers) - what is truth - and what lies beyond the grave.

Flawless cinematography, lighting, dappled faces are hallmarks of the Bergman landscape. He seems to grab the viewer by the collar and pull us onto the screen, forcing us to experience the horrors of medieval Europe, including the fruitless two-century long Crusades and the fear engendered by the Black Plague that swept through Europe.

Scapegoats, terror and cruelty were used by the Church to counteract any sort of threat or fear, whether to the Church's sacred word or the uncontrollable plague that killed off a third of Europe. People behaved like puppets, unlike our two heroes - the Knight and his Squire - who conclude we must create our own meaning and our own moral code.

Memorable scenes include von Sydow playing Chess with Death. He manages to cheat death for a few hours, in which he accomplishes what he failed to do during his wholly unenlightened, morally degrading 10-year-battle in the Crusades: He saves a married couple and their child from certain death - and importantly - questions a naive young girl, a so-called witch, to discover if she knows the secrets of life, the Knight's ultimate crusade. The simple girl, brainwashed by immoral clergy, believes herself to be a witch who of necessity will burn - painlessly - for her sins. Von Sydow in an act of mercy gives her a potion that will erase the certain anguish of her death.

Von Sydow's temporary reprieve from death allows him to find - in only several hours - the life of meaning that failed him for 40 years. Excellent film commentary accompanying the DVD tells us that the famous penultimate scene of von Sydow and friends being led across the silhouetted landscape by the scythe-bearing Grim Reaper was just an afterthought by Bergman, just a happy or dreary accident, like life itself.

This movie masterpiece must be seen by those willing to confront life's eternal verities.

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Probably one of the greatest movies ever

This movie is considered Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece. And it worth it.
Back from the crusades a Knight named Antonius (Max Von Sydow, in a dazzling performance) is questioning himself about Gods' existence. All he sees around is suffering, destruction, pain and degradation.
The Inquisition and the Black Plague have devastated his homeland. Feeling among people is of desolation and loneliness.
During his journey back home Antonius meets Death, that defies him for a chess game. Thats when begins one of the most memorable, unforgettable scenes of the cinemas' story.
This is a movie about human existence and doubts, fears and hopes. A movie about life and death, that will touch you in a way you have never seen before. Bergman reaches the deepest place of human soul with unparalleled expertise.

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Bergman's film evokes a plague-ridden world of suffering from which God is surely absent...

Ingmar Bergman's status as a master of cinema derives less from individual films than from his totally distinctive style and abiding preoccupations... Few directors have repeatedly given voice to such a deeply personal vision of human suffering and solitude...

In the mid-1950's, Bergman began a series of dark, brooding films about the nature of good and evil, about faith and death, about the psychological and spiritual torment of mankind...

In "The Seventh Seal," a medieval knight returns from the Crusades to challenge Death to a symbolic game of chess while he seeks the meaning of life... The scenes depicting the burning of a young witch, the masochism of a procession of flagellants, and the suffering of plague victims constitute an unforgettable visualization of the wretched condition of the human race... But in the end, the knight manages to save from death a family of strolling players--a father, mother, and infant who are obviously symbols of Christianity...

This striking allegory, which established Bergman's international reputation, is still regarded as one of his best films...

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