While I'm not going overboard in extolling the virtues of THE SEVENTH SEAL, I do think it has some striking imagery and had the potential to be the ultimate work of art Ingmar Bergman was obviously striving for. But do I think he achieved it? No...for the simple reason that it leaves us unenlightened on the subject with no new knowledge.
Bergman really has no answers to the age old questions we all have about life and death and what happens in the hereafter. And giving Death a human face seems to me the wrong decision on Bergman's part. He should have kept him a hooded spectre and nothing more--faceless and unknown within the shadows of his hood. Humanizing him doesn't work, at least not for me.
A cruel streak runs through some of the more boisterous moments, such as when one of the actors is put through some hazing by a sadistic man who later gets his comeuppance. Everyone laughs and applauds as the man is humiliated beyond the endurance of this spectator for the sake of bawdy humor which seems forced and contrived, as does much of the clowning by the group of actors.
But there are so many good things about the richly photographed film, that I don't want to give this review an entirely negative impression. But the truth is it offers no new insights into the age old questions of life and death. It's all presented as an allegory with religious symbols (flagellation, the cross, the witch burning) and we suspect that among the many utterances we hear from The Devil will be something to ponder and think about.
But no. There's only the hopelessness that Death offers when the plague is rampant over the land and is something which cannot be avoided by man, no matter how clever he thinks he is. The chess game that the Black Knight proposes is a ruse that the Devil sees through from the start. And we suspect near the end that he knows the young couple with the infant have escaped since he says that he knows all that is happening, even behind his back. The young couple will be doomed too, eventually. Death will consume all.
But Max van Sydow is excellent as The Knight questioning his reason for being and his reason for dying. The B&W cinematography evokes the Middle Ages with striking scenes that stay in the mind afterwards and the film, while bleak and disturbing, is always riveting to watch.
It's a very engrossing film, but there are many weaknesses. I don't consider it the masterpiece that so many others label it.
Bergman really has no answers to the age old questions we all have about life and death and what happens in the hereafter. And giving Death a human face seems to me the wrong decision on Bergman's part. He should have kept him a hooded spectre and nothing more--faceless and unknown within the shadows of his hood. Humanizing him doesn't work, at least not for me.
A cruel streak runs through some of the more boisterous moments, such as when one of the actors is put through some hazing by a sadistic man who later gets his comeuppance. Everyone laughs and applauds as the man is humiliated beyond the endurance of this spectator for the sake of bawdy humor which seems forced and contrived, as does much of the clowning by the group of actors.
But there are so many good things about the richly photographed film, that I don't want to give this review an entirely negative impression. But the truth is it offers no new insights into the age old questions of life and death. It's all presented as an allegory with religious symbols (flagellation, the cross, the witch burning) and we suspect that among the many utterances we hear from The Devil will be something to ponder and think about.
But no. There's only the hopelessness that Death offers when the plague is rampant over the land and is something which cannot be avoided by man, no matter how clever he thinks he is. The chess game that the Black Knight proposes is a ruse that the Devil sees through from the start. And we suspect near the end that he knows the young couple with the infant have escaped since he says that he knows all that is happening, even behind his back. The young couple will be doomed too, eventually. Death will consume all.
But Max van Sydow is excellent as The Knight questioning his reason for being and his reason for dying. The B&W cinematography evokes the Middle Ages with striking scenes that stay in the mind afterwards and the film, while bleak and disturbing, is always riveting to watch.
It's a very engrossing film, but there are many weaknesses. I don't consider it the masterpiece that so many others label it.