The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection

The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection
by Ingmar Bergman

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DVD details

Actor: Bengt Ekerot, Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Bj?rnstrand, Max von Sydow, Nils Poppe
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Gunnar Fischer
Writer: Ingmar Bergman
Editor: Lennart Wall?n
Producer: Allan Ekelund
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: Swedish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-01-26
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Criterion

DVD Reviews of The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection

DVD Review: did not complete purchase
Summary: 1 Stars

have already reported this... did not complete purchase.. it could not be shipped . it was to be a gift. please stop asking about it.. take me off your follow up list. thanks

DVD Review: Dark, anachronistic and...optimistic
Summary: 5 Stars

Since I live in Sweden, I find it difficult to review this movie. Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece "The Seventh Seal" has been shown innumerable times on Swedish television, until it has become a pop culture phenomenon (the movie is parodied as often in Sweden as in the US or Britain). Also, the actors speak with a very old fashioned diction and enunciation, making the movie involuntarily humorous to modern viewers - provided you understand Swedish.

As a kid, I intensely disliked "The Seventh Seal". I was bored by it, and considered the plot incomprehensible. There are also scenes that resemble those of a horror movie. As a history-obsessed adult, I was more struck by the anachronisms. The main character, Antonius Block, is a knight returning from the crusades in Palestine. However, the plot is obviously set during the 1350's, at the time of the Black Death. By then, Palestine had been in Muslims hands for generations. The last crusader stronghold, Acre, fell already in 1291. And while crazy flagellants may have existed even in Sweden, they are usually associated with Spain. Some also claim that the chess game in the movie is played according to modern rather than medieval rules. But the most obvious anachronism is that neither Antonius nor his squire J?ns seems to believe in God - an impossibility in medieval Europe. Indeed, Block sounds like a modern existentialist!

But then, that's the point...

"The Seventh Seal" is really a philosophical movie about the human condition. The medieval setting is symbolic. Indeed, I suspect Ingmar Bergman quite deliberately chose a stereotyped, dark image of the Middle Ages as a backdrop to his story. There is also an obvious contrast between the medieval darkness, Block's existential anxiety and the lighter attitude of some of the other characters.

So what is the message, then? Despite the morbidly dark atmosphere (made worse by the fact that the movie is black and white), "The Seventh Seal" is actually quite optimistic. I took me years to really realize it, though.

Antonius Block gets in serious trouble already at the start of the story, when Death himself comes to take him away. During a classical stand off, Block challenges Death to a game of chess. If Block wins, he and his companions are free to go. If he looses, they will all die, but the game will at least have bought Block some time to solve the riddle of existence. During the respite, Block and J?ns journey through an absurd, apocalyptic landscape. Old scores are settled and some villains are roughed up. Block becomes friendly with two travelling actors, Jof and Mia, who seem to symbolize purity and innocence. (The names Jof and Mia are an obvious reference to the Biblical Joseph and Mary, "Josef" and "Maria" in Swedish.) Naturally, Death wants to kill both Jof, Mia and their little toddler (Baby Jesus?). At the last moment, the knight attempts to cheat in the chess game, thereby distracting Death, which enables the actors to get away to safety. Death eventually wins the game, but Block is satisfied nevertheless: he will die, but at least he saved Jof, Mia and their child. At the end of the movie, the entire landscape virtually lightens up, as Jof and Mia come out of the dark woods. Even the death of Block and his travel companions is suddenly seen from a more optimistic angle, as Jof retells a vision of how the knightly travelling party is dancing in the skies. Although led by Death to an uncertain fate, Block is somehow the winner. He failed during the "holy" crusades, and even lost his faith in God, but as a last act, he at least saved the innocent and pure.

What more can be asked for?

DVD Review: The Seventh Seal
Summary: 5 Stars

During the Black Death's ravaging of Europe in the 1300's, the noble knight Antonius Block is returning home to his castle in Sweden after a several year long crusade to Palestine. Riding a few steps behind him is his squire J?ns, not quite the idealist that his master is, but still a good man in his own right. A day's ride from home, Death appears, declaring to the weary knight that it is his time and that he will have to follow him to the lands beyond the great veil. Block (played by the amazingly skilled Swedish actor-noble Max von Sydow) knows that Death is fond of chess, so through a little negotiation he manages to make a deal with Death that through a game of chess, they'll decide if the Reaper can take Block with him or if he gets a delay.

We then follow Block and his squire on their road towards their home, en route they meet up with a troupe of travelling jesters whom they eventually extend their protection to. Block is disillusioned by life and so low that he is even unsure of God's existence! He meets up with Death several times to get confirmation that God exists, and once Death asks; "Don't you ever stop asking? To which Block's eternal European Faustian answer is "Never!" with such feeling that it shakes me to the bone. From time to time throughout the film, we return to Block and Death playing their game of chess, but only one of the jesters with the ability to see beyond the veil can see Death seated on the other side of the board, to the others Block appears to be playing a solitary game. The film gives, to me, an excellent view of what life in medieval Sweden might have been like, in addition to being an excellent drama for this twisted age as well.

The film contains a lot of humour despite its existential and deadly serious religious theme. This is pretty much the film version of the European Faust-cycle, and contains such added bonuses as an all-European cast and being made by the hands of a director whose sympathies were squarely in the Axis camp prior to and during WW2. A must-see, in other words, for anyone remotely interested in religion, history or existentialism. 5 stars and beyond.

DVD Review: 3 stars out of 4
Summary: 4 Stars

The Bottom Line:

An interesting fable that asks a lot of questions, The Seventh Seal would be a better movie if Bergman knew anything about chess (or if it was a little bit more engaging) but it's worth a watch nonetheless.

DVD Review: Most Popular Swedish Language Film of All Time
Summary: 5 Stars

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?

Description of The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection

After a decade of battling in the Crusades, a knight challenges Death to a fateful game of chess. More than forty years after its initial release, Ingmar Bergman's stunning allegory of man's apocalyptic search for meaning remains a textbook on the art of filmmaking and an essential building block in any collection. Criterion is proud to present The Seventh Seal in a pristine new transfer.

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

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