Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that while there are elements of the mystical here (and Death himself is a character), this classic will disappoint viewers expecting something like a horror-fantasy movie. It's wordy and philosophical, and it concerns the search for God and the existential dread that He may not exist. Traditional church-based Christianity is scorned by some characters. This film is not to be confused with the Demi Moore horror film The Seventh Sign, especially.
Families can talk about the many layers of symbolism, parable, and meaning here. Ask kids what parallels they see in Ingmar Berman's Middle Ages shown here -- the plagues, the fears, the predictions that it's the "end times" -- and today, when some predict pretty much the same thing. Is there a proof of God or salvation after all in the movie's plot? Do you agree with Bergman that artists and actors are closer to the divine than the priests and the heroic knights? For Harry Potter fans, how is the character Death the same or different than the one depicted in the "Deathly Hallows" story within the final book?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Charles Cassady, Jr.
For decades, Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal summed up everything about "foreign films" that audiences used to Hollywood fare have loved/hated. Strange and inscrutable things happening, much talk (in Swedish, no less) that's deeply philosophical and obscure, a pretty loose-limbed narrative, and no studio-approved happy ending. Still, it concerns the monumental theme of a painful search for God, and has contributed some immortal moments to cinema. Kids who are into medieval re-enactments and Renaissance fairs might be persuaded to see this. Harry Potter fans who notice a connection between this an the final book where Death plays a role may also raise an eyebrow. But it's still a tough sell.
The famous intro shows a medieval knight, Antonius (Max Von Sydow) on a Scandinavian beach, returning home from extensive combat in the Crusades. A pale-faced black-robed man, none other than Death, appears to take Antonius, but the hero -- not at all startled -- makes Death an offer. He knows Death is fond of chess because he's seen it depicted in paintings (the film's sly humor goes quite underrated), so he challenges Death to a match, with his own survival the prize if he wins. Death agrees to play, and their game takes place throughout the rather rambling and episodic storyline.
Despite his courage facing down Death, Antonius is secretly in spiritual agony. He has long sought proof of God in a violent world, filled with superstition, plague, and doom; a life that's otherwise "senseless terror." The knight didn't find God while fighting in the Holy Land, and Death doesn't have any information on the topic either. The knight's squire Jons, not at all the clownish Sancho Panza type, is a hardened cynic and atheist. At one point in their travels Jons finds the clergyman who persuaded Antonius to leave his wife for the Crusades in the first place. The cleric has become a grave-robber, bully, and attempted rapist. Jons takes revenge, you bet.
En route to his long-neglected wife and castle, Antonius accompanies and protects fellow vagabonds, chiefly a small, fun-loving acting troupe run by a young husband and wife, Joseph and Mia. Though the actors are impious, roguish, and reckless (one has an affair with the wife of a village blacksmith). Joseph claims to see visions, like the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, and filmmaker Ingmar Bergman seems to be suggesting if there is any God at all, the artists and creative types (including filmmakers?) are nearer the truth than churches, scholars, and fanatical pilgrims.
Bergman also has characters grumbling that with war, witchcraft, and pestilence abounding, they believe they are doubtlessly living in the much-prophesied end of times -- and, of course, these are claims expressed today about that, just as much so as 1,000 years ago. We also have modern plague epidemics and violence in the Holy Land, with still silence from the heavens and no solid evidence angels are on the verge of blowing their final, apocalyptic trumpets. Thus the themes of The Seventh Seal, the wrestlings with religious doubt, are meaningful for the present, as Bergman intended.
Other movies have borrowed (or parodied) the imagery of The Seventh Seal, particularly the embodiment of Death, who showed up again with a slightly different wardrobe in the horror classic Masque of the Red Death. Bergman's character Death was also a silly fall guy throughout the comedy Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentA character sings a bawdy song, and there's an adulterous affair, but the serious stuff is offscreen. |
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ViolenceBrutality threatened, but rarely any shown directly, except once with a man slashed across the face. Religious fanatics whip themselves in a procession. A relatively mild scene of a dazed girl (allegedly tortured), accused of witchcraft, facing execution by being burned at the stake. A scene with an eyeless, decayed corpse. |
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Language"Hell" used in the dialogue. |
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Social BehaviorA truly chivalrous knight, Antonius, is tortured by his doubts over the existence of God, but he still strives to forestall Death -- ultimately, as a sort of sacrifice so others under his protection can escape. Though other characters are deeply flawed -- scalawags, cynics, adulterers, drunkards -- it's the devoted characters who escape. Antonius' cynical squire talks trash about religion, love, and his own wife (whom he assumes is dead and casually takes a village woman as a replacement), though even he strives to do right, in a strictly secular way. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoCharacters get drunk in a tavern. |
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