Last week, I reviewed “Friday the 13th.” This week, I’m reviewing “The Seventh Seal.” Aside from the fact that they both have numbers in their titles, these movies couldn’t be more different.
One is in color; the other is in black and white. One was made in the 21st century, the other in the mid-20th. One is in English, the other in Swedish. One has several on-screen deaths but ignores any philosophical issues; the other is mostly bloodless but includes deep musings on life, death, fate and faith.
One is terrible, and one is a classic.
In the spirit of promoting quality films, here are five reasons you should watch “The Seventh Seal”:
1. It’s entertaining. The story is simple: Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow) is a knight returning from the Crusades, disillusioned and doubting the existence of God. He meets Death, who has come for him, but Block stalls the grim reaper by challenging him to a game of chess. As the game continues, he meets a family of traveling performers, and together they witness cruelty, violence, religious intolerance and The Black Plague. But despite all that, the movie is full of light and even has funny moments. My favorite comes when a man stuck high in a tree looks down to see Death staring up at him — and holding a big saw.
2. It’s a pop culture landmark. You’ve seen secondhand moments from “The Seventh Seal.” Any time a character has played a game with Death (like in “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey”), it’s a reference to this film. Woody Allen loves “Seal” and constantly references it in his movies. There’s even a scene in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Last Action Hero” where a Death steps out of a theater showing “The Seventh Seal” and walks the streets, sending various New Yorkers to the great beyond.
3. It looks great. Using beautiful black and white compositions, director Ingmar Bergman and cinematographer Gunnar Fischer give their film the look of a medieval woodcut, with sharp contrasts between the brights (the hair of baby Mikael) and the darks (Death’s cloak). Several scenes are (appropriately) shot in horror-film style, and the ending — with Block and company finally encountering Death followed by a vision of them dancing away in the distance — is so striking it’ll stick in your head long after all those Swedish credits have finished scrolling.
