Wonderfully offbeat film!

The Worst Film Ever

one of my absolute favorites!

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The Seventh Seal is a special kind of film because it deals directly with the reality of death, yet it retains a feeling of hope. Ingmar Bergman projects his fear of the unknown on the screen and, as an audience, we are able to relate because we've all felt the same type of fear. It is a beautiful film and it features iconic images and ideas. This is truly a classic.

A knight returning from the Crusades finds a rude church still open in the midst of the Black Death, and goes to confession there. Speaking to a hooded figure half-seen through an iron grill, he pours out his heart: 'My indifference has shut me out. I live in a world of ghosts, a prisoner of dreams. I want God to put out his hand, show his face, speak to me. I cry out to him in the dark but there is no one there.' The hooded figure turns, and is revealed as Death, who has been following the knight on his homeward journey.Images like that have no place in the modern cinema, which is committed to facile psychology and realistic behavior. In many ways, Ingmar Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal' has more in common with the silent film than with the modern films that followed it. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of cinema with its stark imagery and its uncompromising subject, which is no less than the absence of God.Films are no longer concerned with the silence of God but with the chattering of men. We are uneasy to find Bergman asking existential questions in an age of irony, and Bergman himself, starting with 'Persona', found more subtle ways to ask the same questions. But the directness of 'The Seventh Seal' is its strength: This is an uncompromising film, regarding good and evil with the same simplicity and faith as its hero.All of Bergman's mature films, except the comedies, are about his discontent with the ways that God has chosen to reveal himself. But when he made 'The Seventh Seal' he was bold enough to approach his subject in a literal manner; to actually show the knight playing chess with Death, which is a brilliant metaphor for man's attempt to defy mortality's gravity through his accomplishments, perhaps most vividly in the idea of artistic genius, the need to create a vital work which will survive the author's death. And he had the confidence to end his film, not with a statement or a climax, but with an image. "The strict lord Death bids them dance," says the young actor, directing the attention of his wife to the horizon, against which Death leads his latest victims in a macabre parade. Ingmar Bergman's dark masterpiece effortlessly sees off the revisionists and the satirists; it is a radical work of art that reaches back to scripture, to Cervantes and to Shakespeare to create a new dramatic idiom of its own.10 out of 10.

As much as I enjoy the idea of playing chess with death and the dialogue between the two, I can't ignore the plainness that I felt in the gaps between the chess games. It's an interesting insight to Ingmar Bergman's mind and it is well done but it is also a bit dragged out and IMO not as incredible as the mass of 10/10 reviews would point towards.If you historically contextualize it, it is no doubt addressing philosophical questions in a far more open and poetic way than many would dare, all while maintaining a dark & lovely feel buttt it's a little rough watching it in 2018.

I like The Seventh Seal more every time I see it. This is a movie that had the balls to flip religion the bird in 1957. It's a perfect tale of revelation and redemption, thrusting a mirror in front of the human condition.A knight has returned from the Crusades, but his faith is shaken and the Bubonic plague spreads across the land. If that weren't crisis enough, death itself stalks him on the shores of his homeland and he finds himself playing chess with the reaper to buy himself a little time. But time for what? Time to do something, ANYTHING, to atone for the chaos and misery he wrought in the middle east; a campaign he now knows to have been arrogant, foolish and utterly without merit.As the knight, his squire and the rest of our characters tour medieval Sweden, we see them confront every horror that the Dark Ages brought to bear. We see opportunistic theft, attempted rape, mockery and scapegoating out of total ignorance, and a mentally ill woman burned as a witch. Everyone is terrified of the black plague, and their inability to cope with it brings out the worst in humanity. As a troupe of bards attempt to alleviate a small town with songs and dance, a Christian passion play comes crashing through the streets, whipping themselves bloody, wailing and begging the sky for relief and forgiveness that will not come. No doubt they will spread the plague further before they drop their heavy wooden crosses and die in agony. Our main characters look on, wondering where the human race went wrong.The knight endures all this while delaying his inevitable loss on the chess board and seeking answers to the questions that tear at his faith. In the end, none are satisfactory, and yet he remains stalwart in his quest for redemption. When death comes for him and his companions, the knight's good deeds have been accomplished and the cynical squire stares his mortality down, demonstrating that humanity can still perform at its best in the absolute worst circumstances.There is virtually no fat in this film. It is clean in its beautiful black and white frames, crisp editing and purposeful dialogue. Although mostly bleak in their humor, there are a few laughs to be had among the 96 minutes of existential dread. We're even given a clarifying moment of hope and joy before the credits appear. This timeless piece is Ingmar Bergman's master work and it's as good as films get.