IMDb #129 Review: The Seventh Seal (1957)

Source: Wikipedia

In the Middle Ages, Europe must have hit a midlife crisis. Insecurity, instability, irritability. These moods spur the Crusades, the Black Death, and paranoid stupidity that spreads like poison ivy at an orgy. And the people suffering attempt to mitigate the symptoms in the worst ways imaginable ... also like poison ivy at an orgy.

Two Crusaders return to Sweden, weary of life and wary of faith. Their homeland is a wasteland: masses afflicted by plague, mobs accusing witches and burning random women. Actors roam free.

Worst of all, Death himself pays the handsomest Crusader a visit, manifesting as a pasty creep in a black hooded cloak who challenges him to chess. Apparently Death is a stereotypical basement-dwelling nerd.

The Crusader struggles, not with the trials of being ruggedly handsome, but with belief. The Crusades shook him. He can't accept God and can't accept nothingness. Apparently, however, he can accept that Death manifests corporeally and cheats at chess while looking like he has to make curfew at his mom's place in the stygian abyss.

But nobody else knows about this rigged game. The real plot has the Crusader buddies falling in with a group of actors. The man, wife, and young son -- likely representative of a demented Holy Family -- trundle their wagon from town to town performing vaudeville and morality plays. When medieval theater becomes boring (which is quickly), the bored peasants resort to barroom brawls, beating their wives, and the aforementioned witch hunts.

The alpha plot gets complicated when the heroes try to save a witch. The main guy because he wants to ask the devil (through her) about God, the others to save an innocent woman from pointless excruciating fiery death.

Death slinks in the shadows, watching, never getting involved, except for a brief stint as a lumberjack (which makes just as much sense in context).

For Ingmar Bergman? This is straightforward, approachable, and poses legitimate questions about morality and mortality. And best of all it's got a sense of humor as black as the pit. Just don't ask me to explain it, or I'll call up Death the mouth-breather to schedule you a one-way private tour of his anime figurine collection.

96 minutes.