Description: Movie lovers will always return to The Seventh Seal, regarded by many as one of the greatest films of all time. Bergman combines symbolic imagery, realistic details, and wry humor for the moving medieval tale of a knight searching for God in a world ravaged by plague. As the honorable knight, his cynical squire, a troupe of carefree actors, and black-robed Death, a superb cast of Bergman regulars portray the cruelty and charity that coexisted during this dark era.
Amazon.com essential video: Ingmar Bergman's 1956 film has been parodied by everyone from Woody Allen to Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, but it remains one of the strangest and richest classics of world cinema. Max Von Sydow plays a knight returning from the Crusades to encounter an apocalyptic scenario inspired by the Book of Genesis. He plays chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot), sees a manacled witch, watches a band of flagellants go by--all of it foretelling an inevitable end to life. Unabashedly allegorical and lyrical and existing in a world unto itself, the film is enormously mesmerizing no matter what one thinks of the weighty meanings Bergman has attached to it all. The DVD release has English subtitles, audio commentary by critic Peter Cowie, theatrical trailer, and Bergman's filmography. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Most Popular Swedish Language Film of All Time
It is- just look at the rankings above. This movie is pretty much in the dictionary next to "art house cinema," for a certain population group, you saw it in college at the art house theater, for their children- watch the DVD. This movie is, compared to other Bergmann, a rolicking good time- so be ready to laugh- and despair.
Another good Criterion Collection edition- is there any other way to watch the classics of european cinema?
Rating: - Knight asks questions on our behalf, gets no answers
Or maybe he does, but not until after Death leads him and some of his friends away with him.
In stark black and white, the story unfolds of a crusader, just back home in Sweden after ten years overseas, disillusioned and tired. He asks if there is a God or not, how he can believe when he can no longer make himself do it, and why he has to die, among other questions. Death does not answer anything directly but is also not presented as an evil force. The plague is more terrifying than Death is, in this situation.
If you like foreign films, existentialism, and black and white photography, ... Read More
Rating: - Death? A Reason to Believe? 14th Century Black Plague? Readon
Simple, cutting, to the point; Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" is a movie with a message, yes, a message that tells a story about a man and his chess board. The opponent, a pale man with a simple mission greets the knight Antonius Block in the 14th century Sweden; returning home to a disease ravaged land, yes the Black Plague has eaten its way to his home. Job I mean Block meets his match in this cunning story that was put together one summer with a bunch of friends of Ingmar and his girl friend Mary, the leading lady.
--Ross
Rating: - A film with brains
Of Ingmar Bergman's early black and white films, The Seventh Seal (1957) is my personal favorite. The story takes place in the middle of the 12th century. The black plague strikes Europe. A knight (Max von Sydow) and his squire, Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand) return from the Crusades: the Crusades were a series of military campaigns by western European Christians to recover the Holy Land from the Saracen Muslims. The ocean delivers Antonius and his squire to a beach. The sky is half lit; the ocean is restless; the sun is almost under the horizon. A black bird--a scavenger--hangs over Antonius. He prays. But he ... Read More
Rating: - Excellent
One of the things that separates a great artist from a lesser one is his ability to switch forms, themes, and the like, yet still imprint that unmistakable essence that lets a viewer know which artist they are dealing with immediately. Rarely has there been a greater and more vivid example of this reality than in comparing the two films Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman released in 1957: The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries.
The first film, which is the subject of this essay, is stark, cosmic, spare, allegorical, and unremitting in its view of life, whereas Wild Strawberries is rich, personal, realistic ... Read More
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