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Ingmar Bergman
Single Disc [2007]
CAST:
(Svensk Filmindustri (SF))
Spoofed by Woody Allen, Bill and Ted (on their Bogs Journey) and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Last Action Hero, this is an undoubted masterpiece of world cinema. While this is a highly personal film, in which director Ingmar Bergman (the son of the chaplain of the Swedish royal family) resolves his own doubts about the existence of God, it will leave even the most cynical filled with optimism.
Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow), a knight, returns from a 10-year crusade with his squire, Jons
(Gunnar Bjornstrand), to find his homeland ravaged by the plague. When the black-cloaked figure of Death (Bengt Ekerot) appears to claim them, Block, whose war experiences have left him cynical about the existence of God and the afterlife, challenges Death to a game of chess to stall for time and gain some insight into the meaning of life before passing on. The game is intermittently paused and resumed during the journey home while Block and Jons meet several traveling companions, including a mute girl (Gunnel Lindblom)
whom they save from a bandit, and a family of poor traveling players--Jof, a gentle visionary (Nils Poppe);
his wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson); and their infant daughter.
Block witnesses much suffering and anguish along the way (an encounter with a woman accused of witchcraft who is about to be burned at the stake is especially jarring) but also finds evidence of human kindness and love, prompting him to realize that even a single gesture of goodwill might make the long struggle of his existence worthwhile.
The title of Ingmar Bergman's highly acclaimed allegorical film stems from the Book of Revelation.
A medieval knight (Max von Sydow) returning to Sweden from the Crusades finds a land ravaged by the Black Death and hysteria. A demented monk has inspired a cult for self-flagellation; witches, blamed for the plague, are tortured and burnt. As he progresses through this horrifying, devastated country the knight treats each encounter as another step on his path towards knowledge of God and His relationship with man.
The classic centrepiece of the film (which takes its title from the Book of Revelations) is the game of chess which von Sydow plays with Death and which he uses to win himself a reprieve, to gain time wherein to come to terms with God and the remnants of his own faith.
Over the whole of this sombre, brooding film there seems to hang the threat of an even greater disaster waiting to happen, the dreadful Day of Judgement itself.
Clearly influenced by early religious paintings and filling the screen with astounding images of lust, beauty and cruelty, Bergman evoked a marvellous sense of period, of the hardship and squalor of medieval life. Yet there is an allegorical side to the story, too. The plague, the awful possibility of something worse, spoke clearly to a modern generation living in fear of the nuclear bomb. Despite the denouement, in which the knight tricks Death by sacrificing himself to save the two believers, the travelling player and his wife who are perhaps the only hopeful characters in the film, The Seventh Seal is a bleak vision of man's destiny, but so superbly and grippingly made that it instantly established its director's reputation as one of the most significant figures in world cinema.
© Tartan
© Tartan
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© Tartan
© Tartan
© Tartan
© Tartan
© Tartan
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June 2017: back in stock. 'New - still sealed'.
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This is the normal Dvd jewel case release which is a good thing as the digipack release was delicate and could get damaged very easily. The cover is still the same. Official release.
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