Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16102 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-12-03
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Formats: Black & White, PAL
• Original language: Swedish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 92 minutes

Synopsis
Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow), a knight, returns from a 10-year crusade with his squire, Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand), to find his homeland ravaged by the plague. When the black-cloaked figure of Death (Bengt Ekerot) appears to claim them, Block, whose war experiences have left him cynical about the existence of God and the afterlife, challenges Death to a game of chess to stall for time and gain some insight into the meaning of life before passing on. The game is intermittently paused and resumed during the journey home while Block and Jons meet several traveling companions, including a mute girl (Gunnel Lindblom) whom they save from a bandit, and a family of poor traveling players--Jof, a gentle visionary (Nils Poppe); his wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson); and their infant daughter. Block witnesses much suffering and anguish along the way (an encounter with a woman accused of witchcraft who is about to be burned at the stake is especially jarring) but also finds evidence of human kindness and love, prompting him to realize that even a single gesture of goodwill might make the long struggle of his existence worthwhile. The title of Ingmar Bergman's highly acclaimed allegorical film stems from the Book of Revelation.

Synopsis
Long acclaimed as a cinematic masterpiece and the benchmark by which all other films are judged, The Seventh Seal is a stunning allegory of a man`s search for the meaning of life. As the Black Death continues to wipe out the population of Europe, knight Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow - The Exorxist, The Magician) returns from the Crusades, disillusioned and worn. When suddenly Death appears before him, he asks for the chance to live, proposing a game of chess to decide his fate. The knight takes his squire, a troupe of travelling players and a deaf and dumb girl under his protection as the game is played out. One by one Death exacts his toll, and it is up to Block to stall his opponent for as long as possible if he is to help save the lives of those he is trying to protect. All the while, the villages and towns about them fall further into ruin and religion takes a strangehold on those desperate for a means of survival.

Customer Reviews

"We must make an idol of our fear, and call it God."
This is often hailed as a masterpiece of 20th Century cinema, it's not always evident when you see it for the first time as you don't feel you're seeing anything new - but that is because aspects of this film have influenced and embedded themselves into years of international cinema.

A returning solider from the Crusades questions his faith in religion. He ponders on the existence of God and plays a life or death game of Chess with Death himself.

This isn't a historical drama, the history itself isn't even important - it simply provides a convenient setting for a man to go on a soul-searching journey where he can witness the extremes of humanity, from the burning of young women as witches, to the curse of The Plague.

Given the pretty intense subject matter you'd think there'd be no room for anything else, but Ingmar Bergman manages to open up the lives of others on screen for us to watch by introducing a travelling stage act. There's humour too, brilliantly executed when Jöns attempts to persuade the blacksmith that he's better off without his wife, as all they do is nag and make a mans life a misery anyway.

Much has been said about the appearance of Death. The scythe-toting, black hooded figure is the `default' image of Death, it's hard to imagine him/it in any other physical form. Aesthetics are important in this film, and Bibi Andersson is stunning. Her part is never over-the-top, but she manages to steal the screen, one of the first scenes in the film with her talking to her husband whilst sat in the tree presents her as one of the most beautiful women in film history.

The ultimate message is that you can't cheat Death. You can try, but Death will get you in the end.

INGMAR BERGMAN'S CLASSIC GETS A RE - RELEASE
On July 30, Death finally called checkmate on Ingmar Bergman. Thats the only way to put it, really, given that Bergman's shot of the Grim Reaper playing chess against Max Von Sydow in The Seventh Seal has become one of the most iconic images in cinema history.

But at the time of it's release, the film's influential reputation was not a foregone conclusion. When it premiered at Cannes in 1957, the film only took Special Jury Prize, loosing out to William Wyler's Quaker drama Friendly Persuasion for the Palme D'Or.

The Seventh Seal is vital because it marked the point where the director stopped being merely a cog in the film industry production line and became and artist whose personal obsessions and stylistic techniques were as important as the stories they told. Almost single handedly Bergman raised the status of post War cinema as an art form and The Seventh Seal is arguably his finest work.

In the film, medieval knight Antonius Block returns from the Crusades, undertaken as a test of religious faith, still struggling with doubt over the excistence. In his plague ridden homeland, the knights humanity manifests itself by protecting a couple of travelling players and their baby son from the imposing figure of Death. This medieval road movie has endured for 50 years because it examines a timeless theme - eternal life or eternal void.

Bergman died on the island of Faro.

The DVD has an upgraded picture transfer and subtitling makes this 50th anniversary special edition the DVD version to buy for Bergman novices (as does the alternative American English dubbed soundtrack). Elsewhere the quality over quantity as far as extras are concerned. Die hard fans might want to shell out again, given the inclusion of Bergman's rare 1984 short Karin's Face, which chronicles the life of the director's mother through a montage of family portrait photograpths. Meanwhile, Ian Christies knowledgeable commentary over 14 minutes of Seventh Seal on location footage convays more about casting, themes and director biography than most feature length efforts.

So if you already own this then its worth buying again and either way this timeless classic must be in your film DVD collection

Deathly dull
Ok, so I'm a philistine! I tried to like this - I really, really did. I saw it a week BEFORE Bergman died. Hope he doesn't get too upset if he discovers there's no God!

This is, of course, beautiful to look at in a gothic sort of way but a film should be more than that. Hitchcock was a cinematic innovator whose films were nevertheless exciting and appealed to just about everyone. This is strictly for the 'artshouse crowd', the Woody Allens. It's so very, VERY slow and so very VERY theatrical (Bergman was a theatre director too, and it shows).

Of course, it'll help you enjoy it (if that's the right word) if you're scared stiff of death. I'm not, so perhaps therein lies my problem. I guess I'm not looking forward to the process of dying, but death itself? Well, it happens to all of us, doesn't it? Get over it!

Like The Exorcist, which has been parodied so often and so relentlessly that it can never be scary again (if it ever was, which I doubt), the Seventh Seal, and especially the character of Death, has suffered so long at the hands of Monty Python ('darling, you didn't use the canned salmon, did you?'), Bill & Ted and, yes, Woody Allen himself, that it's difficult to see the original again without laughing where you're not supposed to laugh. Equally, it's rather hard to laugh at the bits that are supposed to be funny.

So I can't deny that this is a very original piece of art. But it's also a couple of hours of my life I'm never going to get back. How depressing!