The Seventh Seal

I have viewed this movie before with my brother, who took film as a major in college. this movie truly astounded me with its cinematography. A snapshot could be made of every scene and it could be used as the poster for the movie. Truly great work by Gunner Fischer ( Cinematographer). One image that stuck with my mind was where Antonius and Death sit down to play chess witht eh ocean in the backround.

It is symbolic that Block plays chess with death throughout the entire movie. It is brilliant that the director (Ingmar Bergman) personified death in this human form. When death is tangible and facing you it really made it so much scarier.

The movie portrays Death as a trickster; where he cheats to find out Block's strategy. It means Death does not play fairly in the game of chess, just like he does not play fairly in the game of life. Our demise is inevitable and when Block faces that (literally) he sets out to find evidence that God exists even if it meant asking the devil to appear before him.

The character of the knights squire is definetely my favorite character because he seems much more aware and sure of how life works. This is the existentialist way of thinking. He definetely has some of the best lines in the film, such as : "Love is the blackest of all plagues... if one could die of it, there would be some pleasure in love, but you don't die of it." A very dark view of love. 

An other thing prominent in the film is the effect the knowledge of death ahs on life. Death makes life interesting and pleasurable, our lives would be eternal torment otherwise. this can be seen by the qoute in the paragraph above and when death tricks Block, into telling him his strategy, Block says this aside to himself "This is my hand. I can turn it. The blood is still running in it. The sun is still in the sky and the wind is blowing. And I... I, Antonius Block, play chess with Death. ". It shows how this Death makes his life interesting makes him realize how being alive is truly great in the face of death.

A truly enjoyable movie!