The movie
The dramatic movie The Seventh Seal was released in 1957.
It was directed by Ingmar Bergman. The cast includes Max von Sydow, who has until recently participated in many blockbuster movies, Gunnar Björnstrand and Bengt Ekerot.
The movie marks the turning point in Bergman’s career at which he started exploring religious aspects, a fact that became prominent in his later films. The title of the movie stems from the Book of Revelation.
This black and white movie can be characterized as a cinematic poem. It is a masterpiece that won several awards and enjoys a high IMDB score (8.1 from 195,000 viewers). It contains thrilling medieval scenes reminding the paintings of Pieter Bruegel or Hieronymus Bosch. It certainly deserves to be seen today at home.
The scene
In the beginning of the movie, the knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his servant return from the Crusades to their homeland, Sweden, which is ravaged by plague.
Antonius has begun to doubt about the existence of God, because of the many cruelties and misery he has encountered all these years.
When the personification of Death (Bengt Ekerot) comes for him, Antonius challenges him to a chess match with his life as the prize. Death accepts the challenge. The black and white scene of these men starting to play chess is one of the most iconic and influential scenes in the cinema history.
The game is interrupted several times, and we witness many calamities in the world. Although there is so much misery and pain, the movie implies that there is still hope, as we follow in parallel a small family of joyful and optimistic acrobats.
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