The Seventh Seal

I just recently watched Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. I had never seen a Bergman movie before, except for a few minutes of a movie biographing his life. A friend of mine, Shasta, had mentioned Through A Glass Darkly to me a number of times--and that piqued my interest. I wasn't really sure what to expect from his films.

The Seventh Seal is about a knight, Antonius Block, who has just returned from the Crusades. Once a believer in the Crusades, he had become disillusioned both with that cause as well as with life in general. It's the 11th century, and the Black Plague is ravaging Europe. Antonius and his squire, Jöns, wander the countryside. Antonius is approached by Death - as it is his time to die - but convinces Death to play him at chess. If he loses, Death can take him. If he wins, Death will let him live and also tell him the secret of life.

What was most amazing about Seal was Bergman's ability to incorporate existentialism into the film. He projects the philosophical mind present in mid-20th Century Europe, plagued by post-war nihilism and despair, on the Dark Ages. The "Plague" is the darkness and despair of the world--just as it was in Camus' book. Antonius is the existential, seeking for truth amid the darkness. Jöns is the absurdist, the nihilist. I really sympathized with Antonius; plus the dialogue really hit home with me...even if it was somewhat contrived.

In this scene Death is pretending to be a confessor and Antonius is speaking to him through a screen...

Antonius: I want to confess as best I can but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror...My indifference to men has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.

Death: And yet you do not want to die.

Antonius: Yes, I do.

Death: What are you waiting for?

Antonius: Knowledge.

Later, Death makes a poignant comment about the state of peoples' minds...

Antonius: No man can live with Death and know that everything is nothing.

Death: Most people think neither of Death nor nothingness.

In the same scene, Antonius sums up my stance on the Esoteric God...

Antonius: Is it so hard to conceive God with one's senses? Why must He hide in a midst [sic?] of vague promises and invisible miracles? How are we to believe the believers when we don't believe ourselves? What will become of us who want to believe but cannot? And what of those who neither will nor can believe?...I want knowledge. Not belief. Not surmise. But knowledge.