Take Final Destination and throw in a good splodge of Samuel Beckett and you’d probably end up with The Seventh Seal, by Ingmar Bergman.

With film folklore preceding this Swedish tale of a knight playing chess with Death, you could be forgiven for putting it on your list of movies to see but never get round to.

Think of it more as a refined European film noir 10 years on – the maguffin isn’t a worthless Maltese Falcon but the answers to unanswerable questions of faith and mortality, and there’s the existential edge of fatality reminiscent of The Big Sleep (to quote the book: what did it matter where you lay, once you were dead). Even without gangsters and molls the 92 minutes roll with speedy ease and despite the broad sweep of philosophising the only ponderous moments are in the opening shots.

The Knight, Antonius Block, played by Max von Sydow, has returned from 10 years of crusading only to find his homeland in the grip of plague. No wonder he’s bummed out. And when Death (Bengt Ekerot) comes sidling up to him, he wants answers and buys his time trying to pull a Gary Kasparov.

It’s Gunnar Bjornstrand, his squire, who steals the show. Disregarding the ‘higher’ questions of his master, he engages with the inhabitants of the grim land with a rough practicality, saving lives and offering support, and pretty soon the two have a merry band of followers who are just one step ahead of Death.

Surprisingly, angst-ridden hand-wringing is kept to a minimum, and even the mediaeval acting troupe are made more tolerable by an engaging performance by Nils Poppe as Jof and a shockingly attractive Bibi Andersson as Mia, his wife.

There was no The Seventh Seal 2 The Re-match, so you can pretty much guess the end, but who’d have thought it would be uplifting. Brisk, fun and entertaining, it’s certainly worth a watch. Then you too can join in the Bergman Brigade. Swedish films about death, now that’s nothing to be scared of.

Catch it at the Exeter Picturehouse on October 23 and in Falmouth on
October 24. Keep an eye on our weekly Arthouse Roundup for booking details.

Posted by Captn

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 10:08 am and is filed under Local, News, Reviews . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.