The Seventh Seal
Composite Score: 86.17
Starring: Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Bibi Andersson, Inga Gill, Maud Hansson, Inga Langdré, Bertil Anderberg, Åke Fridell, and Erik Strandmark
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Writer: Ingmar Bergman
Genres: Drama, Fantasy
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Box Office: $311,212 worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
The Seventh Seal is Ingmar Bergman’s film about a knight and his squire returning to medieval Sweden from the crusades when the knight is approached by Death and challenges him to a game of chess to perhaps put off his impending doom while he makes his way home. The film stars Max von Sydow as the knight Antonius Block, Gunnar Björnstrand as his squire Jöns, Bengt Ekerot as Death, Nils Poppe as the traveling entertainer Jof, and Bibi Andersson as his wife and fellow performer Mia. As Antonius travels across Sweden, his wrestling with his own religion and God’s apparent silence in the face of the violence of the crusades, the injustices facing people in his own home country, and the widespread suffering resulting from the Black Death take center stage while the supporting characters round out the narrative with their own struggles, either physical or metaphysical. The film launched Bergman’s mainstream success thanks to strong critical reception, and it is still considered one of the greatest films ever made, earning spots on many outlets’ top 100 films of all time lists.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
The Seventh Seal is a dense film, dwelling heavily on issues of religion, and particularly the Christian God. If you’re coming to it expecting some kind of fantastical battle of wits between a knight and the personification of Death, you’ll only be partially correct in your pre-assessment and may or may not enjoy the final product of film that unfolds before you. If you’re looking for some heady low fantasy, this is right up your alley, but if you’re looking for something lighter and easier to digest, I might recommend another excellent fantasy film, The Adventures of Robin Hood. The iconography of The Seventh Seal is enough to warrant any avid cinephile watching it at least once, but the more casual viewer might be a bit too put off by the depth of topic and high level of engagement that the film and its script require.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
It is that very depth and weightiness that makes The Seventh Seal such a great film, though. The medieval setting, though more a conglomeration of many eras within medieval history, serves as an enticing and familiar backdrop to draw the audience into the actual meat of the film, which is housed in Antonius’s questions of religion and the interactions between the other people he encounters on his journey home. Jof and Mia and their son represent the hope that good can come in this life and that faith might not be entirely misplaced, however ridiculous it might seem to outside observers. Jöns shows us another, seemingly acceptable, approach to the inevitable darknesses of the world by treating it all with an air of stoic levity, refusing to be brought down because you know that the bad is coming anyway. The odd love triangle between the blacksmith (Åke Fridell), his wife (Inga Gill), and Jof’s fellow performer Skat (Erik Strandmark) showcases the trivialities that life offers us to pursue in place of real faithfulness and love. It all serves a purpose of building upon the film’s central premise of facing our own mortality while not knowing for certain that we’ve had an impact or that anything comes after or that any of it even mattered in the first place. We’re offered possible answers – that it’s possible to have an impact when acting intentionally, that the human spirit is naturally drawn to something akin to the eternal and thereby possibly a life after death, and that what matters is how much it matters to you – but never anything concrete enough to leave the film feeling certain of anything. Bergman then supplements this depth of thought with some phenomenal shots and frames that should go down in the annals of cinematic history, further stimulating the minds of his audience.
Altogether, The Seventh Seal offers a rich examination of death, mortality, human relationships, and religion without doing too much to answer any of its posed questions, instead offering partial answers and stunning visuals to engage the audience and earn a place of greatness along the way. This depth might be more than some viewers are looking for in their everyday fantasy film viewing, so it’s not a film that has to be watched on repeat, but it does bear viewing if you claim to be a fan of cinema or of Bergman. Currently, this film is available to stream on Max if you’d like to get going on that viewing.
