The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: The Seventh Seal (1957), directed by Ingmar Bergman

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Dance of Death", by Andrew Bird

       When many people think of the works of Ingmar Bergman, there’s a good chance that what they envision is pretty similar to that one popular skit from that one popular comedy show, Mystery Science Theater 3000: Movies cloaked in deafening silence, where frigid, Teutonic people toss vague comments at each other as they stare off into the distance, contemplating the meaning of existence. Rather basic for a spoof, I believe they center it around herring because that’s literally all that Sweden’s allowed to be associated with, but I think the fact that the parody even existed speaks to Bergman’s talents and creative vision. Fellini was a great director, as was Truffaut, Kurosawa and the like, but how many people beyond the hardcore cinephiles would recognize a spoof or satirization of their films? Bergman, however, by being so famously dour, stands amongst the likes of Hitchcock and Lynch in that his ‘reputation’ preceedes him. You step into a film 5 minutes in or 10 minutes in or an hour in and you instantly know it’s a Bergman film. That’s power, ladies and gents. That cinematic immortality.

       Of course it’s also possible that the MST3K guys were just making an in-joke and none of viewing knew or cared what the fuck was going on, making that beginning paragraph all bullshit, but we’re down to the wire and I’m writing on fumes here. Anyway, my first non-MST3K taste of the work of our esteemed Mr. Bergman was the Virgin Spring back in Marathon ‘14 (and yes, fucking hell I’ve been doing this for too long), a tragic story of lost innocence and revenge. Since I’ve been bringing back so many other filmmakers back from the past, I figured he was long overdue for a return. A big return, and how much bigger can you get than a film that was referenced by Bill & Ted and Last Action Hero? This is the last time I’ll get to utilize that lead in this month, so let’s make it count with The Seventh Seal.

       Sometime in the middle of the 14th century, knight Antonius Block and his squire J return home to Sweden after spending a decade fighting in the Crusades. While resting on a beach Block is approached by Death, intent on taking him away, but instead Block challenges the reaper to a game of chess, wagering his life on the outcome. The gamble earns him some respite and Antonius and J make the long trip back to Block’s estate, but said trip is anything but peaceful. Sweden has been hit with the infamous Black Plague, and any sense of reason or order is being drowned out under the screams of hundreds or even thousands of the dead and dying. Why is this happening? Is this some punishment from heaven for some unknown transgression? Does god even exist, that he would allow these things to happen? These are the questions that Antonius and his traveling companions face as they make their journey further and further into a world gone mad. Yet no matter how mad it gets, no matter how far they go, death is never far behind.

       So as you’d expect from a film where Death is a character, this movie is about death. How we confront the inevitability of death, on an individual level as well as a collective one. Which is interesting, because it allows for a shift in tones without ever generating a feeling of whiplash. The scene where a parade of people are whipping themselves and crying for god to protect them from this disease they do not and cannot understand (one of the most tragic moments in the film) can fit right alongside a scene where Death kills a guy by sawing down the tree he’s resting on because that’s the way she goes, sometimes a person’s death is a huge tragedy and sometimes their dumb ass fell out of a tree. Antonius’ desperate search for proof of god’s existence to justify the suffering fits right alongside J’s war-hardened nihilism for the same reasons, the looming sense of manic dread in the face of what seems to be the apocalypse is counteracted by songs about farting and horses acting like crows. Even the ending is this mixture of light and darkness, of endings and beginnings. Death comes for us all, The Seventh Seal seems to imply, but you can’t let that keep you from living.

       This is also the beginning of Ingmar Bergman’s collaboration with Max von Sydow by the way, which would last until 1971’s The Touch. Seeing him here and in the Virgin Spring those jokes about Bergman films being silent and dour gain some weight, but I found Antonius’ stoicism barely containing this geyser of self-hatred and existential panic rather compelling. I found he was often overshadowed by the stronger personalities, most commonly J, but I believe that was Bergman’s intention, that Block’s experiences had made him withdraw from the world and fed into his depression. It’s a bit of a trip to watch his work here and remember that thirty some years later he’d be playing a side character in Dreamscape, a movie that most people haven’t even seen, much less set it alongside Ingmar Bergman’s most famous film. What a wild career this dude has had, from Swedish classics to Flash Gordon to The Force Awakens.

One thing I do find a bit weird in hindsight is how much emphasis pop culture places on the chess game portion of The Seventh Seal. Chess is an important part of the film of course, kicking off the plot and setting up scenes but the amount of chess playing in the film is actually quite small, you could count the number of moves made on screen with one hand. Prior to this review, I thought The Seventh Seal WAS the game of chess, some kind of bottle movie where Death and the protagonist played each other for an hour and change, interspersed with conversations about philosophy and meaning (and no, you can’t have my idea Jim Jarmusch). It’s still a film about the struggle between man and death, but I guess the competition with the grim reaper aspect of The Seventh Seal is more appealing than the ‘struggling against the inevitability of death and an indifferent universe’ thing. Maybe Antonius should have challenged him to a fiddle contest.

       The Seventh Seal is probably one of those movies that’s too good to be on a Halloween movie list, but since I’m the one writing the reviews, it’s going in anyway. There’s nothing in the way of spooks, Death is the only fantastical bit here and he’s just some bald dude in a robe, but it does deal in some heavy subjects which can be scary to think about when you’re lying in bed trying to sleep. Yet there’s this calming presence to this film as well, a feeling of peace not unlike those childhood days after a good night of trick-or-treating. The perfect atmosphere to end this long, dark marathon of the soul, a perfect film to recommend. Hope you have a good time, and I hope to see you again on the next review.

Happy Halloween!!!