The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet)
is an epic drama by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. It portrays the
journey of a medieval knight, Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow) and his
squire as they travel a land that is slowly succumbing to the plague of
the Black Death.
The Knight plays a monumental game of
chess between himself and the dour personification of Death, who has
come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play Wood Painting,
and the title refers to a passage from theBook of Revelation. At the
start of the film appear the words "And when the Lamb had opened the
seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an
hour" (Revelation 8:1). Here the motif of silence is used ironically to
refer to the modern concept of the "silence of God".
In turn the
characters reveal their own stories and philosophies that alternately
praise, revel, deny and question the existence of God. While Death
slowly paces at their heels, they search for the meaning of their
existence...
A major classic of world cinema.
