Verdict:
Seventh Seal was made in black and white in the time when there was colour film available. It is creating shots with stark contrast to complement the contrast in its themes: life versus death, religion versus atheism and existentialism vs essentialism. Everything imbued with life is shown in light, with dark figures bringing death. It is filled with religious imagery and stark lighting, Seventh Seal is in several ways like a medieval noir film.
Sydow’s character, knight Antonius, returns from the crusades. He’s become indifferent to suffering and disillusioned, yet still clings on to God for meaning. He and his even more disillusioned squire return from a war only to find their homeland engulfed in plague. Death is looming. Antonius seeks a confirmation of God’s existence and wants to commit one meaningful deed before he kicks the bucket.
There isn’t one centralized structure to the story. The main characters are traveling through the countryside and meeting other people and having existential conversations about the state of their world, as death is slowly closing up on them. This does not stop the movie from being interesting, but it is important to understand before you start watching Seventh Seal, that you are coming to it for a thoughtful philosophical theatrical play that happened to be filmed. Some conversations quickly turn philosophical, using a poetic language. And if you are not in the right frame of mind, the highfalutin speech does get a little old.
Given the subject matter, it is also a very dark and gloomy film. There is a lot of humour to offset the darkness, but if you pay attention to everything that is being said and shown, it is quite a miserable trip downward. There is a lot of cynicism and atheism, and not in a fun way, but rather engulfed in desperation.
Thankfully, it is relatively unpretentious. The poetry is not patronizing. You do not have to wonder hard about the spooky imagery. The famous scene of the main character playing chess with death is a good example of that clarity.
The music is minimal, and consists more of sound effects than of actual melody. The heroes meet a group of traveling actors and they provide some of the music for the film, and of course to keep with the theme of contrast, their bright playful music is interrupted by the miserable chant of a dour procession spreading fear and trying to find salvation from the impending doom.
Max von Sydow is great at portraying the main character’s turmoil. Most of the time, however, he is the stoic observer most of the time. Gunnar Björnstrand, whose name I had to copy from IMDb for fear of getting an aneurysm when trying to type it, is the true protagonist and de facto narrator, as he gets the most lines and gives them his best.
Seventh Seal manages to be both funny and grim, but mostly grim. If you are afraid of watching it because you got the impression of it being an overly artsy film, it isn’t.
Having said that, it was perhaps not for me. The first time I watched it, I didn’t really get it, and now that I get it a bit more, I regret that I do. I have enough misery in my life as it is.