Probably the most parodied film of all time, [The Seventh Seal] nevertheless contains some of the most extraordinary images ever committed to celluloid. Whether they are able to carry the metaphysical and allegorical weight with which they have been loaded is open to question.
So reads the summary of Time Out's reading of Det Sjunde Inseglet — or The Seventh Seal — Ingmar Bergman's best-known and most widely-cited film, justifiably questioning the weight of the director's most forthright contemplation of death and highlighting its rightful place in the canon of important film works.
The plot is simple, following a Knight returning from the Crusades to find Sweden ravaged by the plague. The knight — who has lost his faith and can no longer pray — meets Death and plays a game of chess with him for his life, whilst he continues to observe the proceedings of the plague around him as he moves further through his own country.
The film contains one of the great iconographic images of the cinema: the personification of death on a beach, portrayed by Bengt Ekerot, his face an amalgam of clownish power white and skeleton, staring at his potential victim while holding out one welcoming arm. According to Bergman: "Depiciting Death was the first step in my struggle against my monumnetal fear of death", the film as a whole depicting the director's quandry concerning his religious faith. He explained:
In the Middle Ages men lived in terror of the plague. Today they live in fear of the atomic bomb. The Seventh Seal is an allegory with a theme that is quite simple: man, his eternal search for God, with death his only certainty.
The film's nihilistic meditation on the absence of God would prove to be overwhelming if it were not balanced by an affirmation of life through the use of Shakespearean comedy in the plight of the travelling players. Here, the characters are portrayed in a soft light, revealing their peace and reflecting the joy to be found in the simple lives they lead; conversely, the harsh, overexposed film found following the Knight and his companions indicates anxiety and moral doubt.
There is no doubt that every move, every line, every motif of The Seventh Seal is imbued with meaning and resonates at some profoundly contemplative level. But to contemplate is not to understand; it is not to place one's finger on a pulse and find a declaration of life. So the Knight exclaims of God...
Is it so terribly incoceviable to comprehend God with one's senses? Why does he hide in a cloud of half-promises and unseen mircales?
... so the viewer can exclaim of Bergman, using his own dialogue as a riposte:
I want knowledge. Not faith, not assumptions, but knowledge!
The title "The Seventh Seal" is taken from the Revelation of St. John, referring to God's book of secrets sealed by seven seals, the belief following that it is only after breaking the seventh seal will the secret of life be revealed. To the skeptical, such claims as to the secret of life existing — let alone being revealed — are instead to believe in some elaborate hoax, the steady and careful construction of which ensures the endurance of particular ideas above and beyond any recognisable basis. To the uninitiated, a similar argument could justifiably be made (as in the introduction to this review) concerning the reputation of Bergman — an argument the initiated may very well struggle to refute. Whether or not the secret of life exists, or whether Bergman's films deserve the regard in which they are held, it can safely be said that The Seventh Seal is an enduring part of the constructs important to both topics of discussion.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • imdb and
