The Seventh Seal

Chances are you’ve seen this iconic image before. It’s also quite likely that you’ve never seen the movie. I finally watched it last night because it showed up in my Netflix suggestions for some reason, and I had recollections of hearing that it was really good or something, and had an interesting discussion about the existence of God. Didn’t really know much else about it, and figured it was a short film composed of a single game of chess in the setting seen in the aforementioned image. It’s not really, and it’s not in English either, which I didn’t expect; strangely enough, it’s a Swedish film, which further supports my suspicion that Swedes are generally really good at making movies.

It is in fact about a knight who just got back from the Crusades and ends up playing chess with the personification of Death. There’s a bunch more to it though, including an entertaining cast of characters and a lots of stuff about the Bubonic Plague, witch burnings, hatred of women, and of course the question of God’s existence. Our friend the knight is very disillusioned following the ill-advised crusades. He’s reached the point in his religious life where he’s doubting that God really hears his prayers, and is searching for a way to really find him and question him. It just so happens that his time on the earth is up, and Death is here to take his soul; the knight takes this opportunity to challenge Death to a game of chess which he of course cannot refuse, in hopes of gleaning theistic knowledge. This game takes place in short segments throughout the movie.

Aside from the knight, there’s a band of musicians/actors, one of whom sees visions of religious figures. There’s also the knight’s squire, who sings rather depressing songs and dishes out a lot of cynical rhetoric primarily about the fickle tendencies of women, and a rather dumb blacksmith who ends up following the group and failing to learn anything. The witch-burning bit surrounds a youthful women who has been accused of communing with the devil and bringing the Plague; the knight seems very intent on getting some information from her about the deity she’s supposed to have known, in order to find God, but she isn’t very helpful. Even so, he tries to help her a little, but it still doesn’t end well, just gut-wrenching emotionally.

The Plague of course is discussed quite a bit, mostly in conjunction with the Church’s reaction, some of which is self-flagellation and doomsaying. The movie does not paint the Church in any sort of positive light. I think I can see where Monty Python got a lot of their inspiration for The Quest for the Holy Grail.

It’s a very dark, cynical movie, with few light-hearted moments. The knight is a very cool character to watch, and his squire something of a badass from time to time. The movie has been praised as a cinematographic masterpiece, which I suppose it is for its time. Not every scene was shot that great, but the first chess segment is of course wonderful though short. Definitely a quality movie. I don’t think I have the chops to give the actual theological meat of it a good analysis, so I’m just going to stop here.