The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde inseglet) poster & wallpaper

Bengt Ekerot, Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand

In medieval Sweden a knight returns from war only to find a ravaged homeland. He meets up with a group of travelling players and eventually confronts the embodiment of death with whom he engages in a ...( read more  read more... )game of chess.

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94% liked it

12,888 ratings

Critics

93% liked it

45 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 36 min.

Directed by: Ingmar Bergman

Release Date: February 16, 1957

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Flixster Reviews (2,814)

  • ceWEBrity
    September 18, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    A lovely, thought-provoking film that avoids easy answers. Perhaps the most colorful and complex depiction of religion in film, The Seventh Seal casts Christianity as a scapegoat, a warmonger, a lightning rod, a pillar of unwavering support, and an utterly irrelevant trifle with ...( read more)a collection of elegantly assembled vignettes. As Ebert said, its stance on good and evil makes no exceptions, clearly asserting the division between the two. Many educated people would argue against this notion, but it's the film's simple view of morality and complex arguments against the manifestations thereof that make it so affecting. If the movie is a little over the top in ways that movies of the 50s usually were (monologues, bombastic musical scores, and the like), it compensates with a stirring cinematographic presentation and surprisingly elegant performances.

    Deserving of its classic status.
  • ohagankieran
    July 26, 2009
    ohagankieran
    Ingmar Bergman's dark masterpiece effortlessly sees off the revisionists and the satirists; it is a radical work of art that reaches back to scripture, to Cervantes and to Shakespeare to create a new dramatic idiom of its own. It was released 50 years ago, but it's as fresh as a ...( read more)glass of ice-cold water. Max von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand are the ascetic Crusader knight and his cynical squire who return from the wars after 10 years to find their country ravaged with plague and the population panicking about the coming apocalypse. The movie fiercely addresses itself to the agony of belief, the need to believe in a God who remains silent, mysterious, absent. It is a work of art that grabs the audience by the lapels, believers and unbelievers alike, and demands not answers, exactly, but an acknowledgement that this is the most important question, the only question: why does anything exist at all? Even after half a century, The Seventh Seal is an untarnished gold-standard of artistic and moral seriousness.
  • her69eyes
    June 27, 2009
    her69eyes
    "The Seventh Seal" is one of those special movies that seems completely familiar to people all across the world, whether they've seen it or not. It's been completely embedded into our collective conscience through decades of praise, imitation, and parody. Released in 1957, this i...( read more)s perhaps the most beloved film of prolific Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, a man who made deeply personal films about his insecurities, fears, and horrific memories. It stood alone in it's time as an unflinching philosophical debate on the existence of God and what waits for us after death. For material so grim, however, Bergman was also capable of making the film endlessly fascinating and entertaining.

    After fighting for ten years in the Crusades, Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire, Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand), return home to Sweden and find their country ridden with the plague. On the seashore, Antonius is confronted by Death (Bengt Ekerot), a figure with a bald pale face and long black robes. Before Death takes him away, Antonius proposes a challenge: a game of chess. Death accepts, and the terms are set - should Antonius win, he gets to keep his life. This, however, isn't so much a method of survival as it is a stall for time, a much needed reprieve which will allow Antonius to overcome his insecurities about faith and destiny.

    Meanwhile, we meet a troupe of traveling entertainers - the impish musician, Jof (Nils Poppe); his devoted wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson); and the repulsive Skat (Erik Strandmark). Skat runs off with a blacksmith's wife (Inga Gill), leaving Jof to be humiliated and threatened at the hands of her insecure husband, Plog (Ake Fridell). Antonius and Jons meet up with the entertainers and travel to Antonius' castle as the game between he and death approaches it's end.

    Because "The Seventh Seal" has it's reputation as an endlessly bleak film, it's easy to overlook the amount of wit and humor in the dialogue. To contrast the beautiful yet grim poetry of Antonius' monologues, squire Jons acts as a clown. He teases his companions, and forms a relationship with Plog through his pessimistic insights on women ("Best to kill them all while the fun lasts!").

    Only certain films contain sequences it's audience will never forget, and "The Seventh Seal" has atleast half a dozen of them. I was underwhelmed when I first saw it, but revisiting it after familiarizing myself with more of Bergman's library was beneficial to my understanding and appreciation of the film. Although I still have reservations regarding the highly contrasting tones (the scenes with Jons and Plog in particular), it's impossible to overlook the pitch-perfect acting, dialogue, and cinematography. It's not my favorite of Bergman's works, but it grows on me more by the day - it's a film without boundaries, one that broadens on each revisit.
  • 76Majikat
    March 12, 2009
    76Majikat
    Although I can partly see the appeal to this popular film, I have to admit (I know I won?t be popular for this) I found a fair bit of this film quite boring. Having heard this film, so many times talked of with high regard ? I feel I?ve missed something!
  • sanjurosamurai
    November 5, 2008
    sanjurosamurai
    probably considered bergmans greatest masterpiece, although that sometimes depends on who you ask, seventh seal is a well directed and thought provoking film. cluttered with spiritual and philosophical concepts, this film is driven not by events or even the characters, rather it...( read more) is driven by diologue and ideology. although i love great diologue, for this film its chatter is sometimes its only weakness, but this cant be denied as one of the most important films ever made.
  • TioBradski
    October 27, 2009
    TioBradski
    Why aren't the first six seals available on DVD?
  • sagapart12
    October 10, 2009
    sagapart12
    Good. I enjoyed the main character quite a bit and really enjoyed the philosophical bent of things. A bit slow at points, and probably that's just me dating myself.
  • marioehrler
    September 20, 2009
    marioehrler
    When it comes to deciding the forefathers of emotional, psychological cinema that deals with potently devastating topics, one of the films that definitely comes up is Ingmar Bergman's utter masterpiece "Det sjunde inseglet". We begin by seeing it as a small, independent film from...( read more) Europe that may be interesting to observe if only for the culture and the obvious linguistic differences. By the end of the last minute, we can't believe how such a seemingly small film has been able to move us, and how it has been able to force us into thinking about heavy and potentially disturbing topics that we've all come to wonder about at some point of our lives...and it does so with such precision and searing accuracy, that we wonder how we couldn't have noticed such a gem before.

    The film deals with a 14th century crusader (Max Von Sydow) who's returning from the Holy Land after many years of endless battle, and on his way home, he encounters the Angel of Death on a long-forgotten beach. Death has, obviously, come to claim him at last, as He has been known to do so for quite a while, what with the Plague finishing off most of Europe with the pest. This particular crusader, an important and intelligent man, decides to challenge Death in a game of chess: he forestalls his demise until the game is over, and if he wins death will move one and let him live for many more years. If Death wins...well, you'll see.

    As the crusader fights an endless game of chess with Death, he travels with his faithful but constantly reproaching squire back to his castle. On the way, they meet a number of interesting characters that help (or, actually, make up) the plot of the film. Each character embodies a different take on the religious aspect of the Dark Ages, and provides, each in his/her own way, a particular point of view on the themes of death, the afterlife, and moral correct-ness.

    The crusader himself has doubts about this, doubts that never let him sleep and that are troubling his existence: What is there in the afterlife? Is there a God and a Devil? Is there even an afterlife or is there simply nothingness once you die? Death is, naturally, vague about these topics and refuses to relinquish any information as he plays chess with the crusader, but the characters he meets provide their own hypotheses to these questions and add to his infinite wisdom. Our crusader decides that he will die only until he has corrected some wrongs in his life and, more importantly, until he has performed a good deed that will finally make his existence on earth valuable.

    But these are very difficult questions to be answered, and Ingmar Bergman makes a point of heightening the difficulty by placing the moral and emotional struggles smack down the middle ages and their obscurely slovenly society. The dialogue and reflective monologues from the characters establish the ideas that torment the characters, and the images that are presented heighten the intensity of the topics (unflinchingly) to astronomical heights, involving the viewer not only in the story and development of the film, but on the director's point and art as well.

    The images seen are some of the most famous and remembered in all of cinematic history; they're short episodes the characters witness, and they're burned into the viewer's mind forever: a procession of martyrs who travel around the country in self-flagellation and pleading for God's forgiveness; a woman who has consorted with the devil and has her hands and feet stoned and broken, and is finally burned at the stake; a poor and kind-hearted juggler who dances like a bear to save his life from an ammoral and sodomite crowd; the Virgin Mary walking with her naked infant in a meadow; a joyous picnic between newfound friends (the scene that, I believe, anchors the point of the film and upsets the general angst and "normalized" horror the rest of the film presents); and, more importantly, the scene where the crusader confesses himself to Death, exposing in a very well-organised monologue the pain and insecurity humans feel towards nothingness and their man-made need to believe in a God that gives sense to our trajectory in earth and our possible entrance to the Next World.

    I won't go into analyzing the characters the crusader meets. Even though they're crucial to a thorough examination of how the moral dilemma is augmented and supported, I'd have to discuss a large list of spoilers that would do nothing to the reader's understanding and enjoyment of the film. Let's just say that, without even seeming to try, these characters move precariously through these dark and dangerous times, sometimes understanding the supernatural world they live in, sometimes overwhelmed by it's implications and finally being able to do nothing about it.

    The screenplay is an obvious masterpiece, but so is the photography (which is all-inclusive and treats the scenes with a special ominous foreboding that keeps us on the edge of our seat every single minute), and so is the acting (which, even though is melodramatic to a large extent, always remains balanced and adequate).

    This is a difficult film to try and explain. It was treated with an exhorbitant amount of acuteness and love, and the topics were so well-presented and developed, that I could write page after page about what I learned, what I think, and how each minute of the film could only advance my wonderment. But, thankfully, it is not my job to detail my analysis, but to review the film...and, in conclusion, I find it to be a perfectly made movie that will always be embedded into my memory. See it at all costs!

    Rating: 4 stars out of 4!!
  • ElCochran90
    September 11, 2009
    ElCochran90
    Review coming someday...

    100/100
  • AbsoluteEquinox
    September 5, 2009
    AbsoluteEquinox
    No other movie has spiritually moved me as much as this one.

View All The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde inseglet) Reviews

Critic Reviews

January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

This is an uncompromising film, regarding good and evil with the same simplicity and faith as its hero. full review

View more The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde inseglet) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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