THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957)

Directed by : INGMAR BERGMAN
Cinematography by: GUNNAR FISCHER

The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet), is one of the SUPREME MASTERPIECES by Ingmar Bergman. a CLASSIC in Direction and Cinematography.
The film is Bergman's stunning allegory of man's apocalyptic search for meaning of life.
After a decade of battling in the Crusades , a knight ANTONIUS BLOCK (played by Max von Sydow),on his return home, encounters Death on a desolate beach . Block, whose war experiences have left him cynical about the existence of God and the afterlife, challenges Death to a fateful game of chess to stall for time to visit his wife and gain some insight into the meaning of life before passing on.
Then Block continues the journey finds solace in a quiet, pleasant picnic of milk and wild strawberries with a family of traveling actors. He invites them to his castle, where they will be safe from the plague.
Halfway through their journey, they come across a witch who is to be burned at the stake. Block asks her both at their first encounter in a village and as she is at the actual stake to summon Satan for him; he wants to ask the Devil about God. Strongly atheistic and cynical, Jöns later tells Block that the witch did not see God or Satan because neither exists.
Much studied, imitated, even parodied, but never outdone, Bergman’s stunning allegory of man’s search for meaning, Hero confesses: My whole life has been a meaningless search. The audience gets chilled on Death’s call. We start to think about our lives on seeing such Masterpieces.
Pontifical Council for Social Communications 1995 has included “The Seventh Seal” in The Vatican Film list .
A textbook on the art of filmmaking and a must watch movie.