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Endlessly imitated and parodied, Ingmar Bergman's landmark art movie The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet) retains its ability to hold an audience spellbound. Bergman regular Max Von Sydow stars as a 14th-century knight, wearily heading home after ten years' worth of combat. Disillusioned by unending war, plague, and misery Von Sydow has concluded that God does not exist. As he trudges across the wilderness, Von Sydow is visited by Death (Bengt Ekrot), garbed in the traditional black robe. Unwilling to give up the ghost, Von Sydow challenges Death to a game of chess. If he wins, he lives--if not, he'll allow Death to claim him. As they play, the knight and the Grim Reaper get into a spirited discussion over whether or not God exists. To recount all that happens next would diminish the impact of the film itself; we can observe that The Seventh Seal ends with one of the most indelible of all of Bergman's cinematic images: the near-silhouette Dance of Death. Considered by some as the apotheosis of all Ingmar Bergman films (other likely candidates for that honor include Wild Strawberries and Persona), and certainly one of the most influential European art movies, The Seventh Seal won a multitude of awards, including the Cannes Film Festival prize.

The Seventh Seal is a classic, a film that consistently appears in top 10 best ever film lists, and rightly so. Max Von Sydow plays Antonius Block, a knight travelling across a country through which a horrible plague is sweeping, who meets several people along his way and witnesses first hand the atrocities that can occur in religious communities under the strain of disease.

The film begins with Antonius pondering a game of chess, before meeting the scythe-wielding character of Death face to face, and offering him a game. When Death says "Yes, I'm actually quite a skilful player" we know that this is going to be an interesting film.

Of the people Antonius meets, the most crucial is a three person troupe of performers who have a young baby with them. The baby's parents have an innocence which contrasts with the womanising nature of their third member, a risk-taking actor who woos a married woman at one of their performances. As Death and Antonius' Chess game progresses one set of moves at a time, in the different places that Antonius visits, Death attempts (with some success) to trick Antonius into revealing his planned strategies before their future encounters.

The plot of The Seventh Seal is original in the way that it is unclear at first whether it is a tale of heroism, and the nature of the knight's act of nobility is only revealed near the end, when a purpose to his chess game against Death is revealed.

Particularly worthy of mention is the character of Jons, the knight's aide, a hard man with a smart mouth who presents an atheistic contrast to the religious context of the film - Jons often argues against conventional wisdom or widely held religious believes, and is a cynic on every subject he discusses.

The Seventh Seal is a thought-provoking film, but not so intellectualised that it can't be enjoyed as a straightforward and exciting story about one knight's heroic deed. Well worth watching.

Ingmar Bergman's 1956 film, The Seventh Seal has been parodied by everyone from Woody Allen to Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, but it remains one of the strangest and richest classics of world cinema. Max Von Sydow plays a knight returning from the Crusades to encounter an apocalyptic scenario inspired by the Book of Genesis. He plays chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot), sees a manacled witch, watches a band of flagellants go by--all of it foretelling an inevitable end to life. Unabashedly allegorical and lyrical and existing in a world unto itself, the film is enormously mesmerising no matter what one thinks of the weighty meanings Bergman has attached to it all.--Tom Keogh

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