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Customer Reviews of The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection

"Silence In Heaven" ~ The Signature Film Of A Legendary Filmmaker
Note: Swedish with English subtitles. <
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>Synopsis: The sound of one long, sustained note from a gong drones through the opening credits announcing the journey is about to begin. Human voices sing out in an ethereal dirge as a cloudy, threatening sky appears on the screen. A lone bird sails above the earth, wings spread wide and motionless as though all of existence has temporarily come to a standstill. There is silence in heaven. <
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>The camera descends to the earth, to a rocky beach where Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) a disillusioned knight returning from the Crusades catches a brief moment of rest before continuing his journey home. As he rides through the stark, unforgiving Swedish countryside accompanied by his squire he becomes further disheartened by the circumstances surrounding him in 14th century Sweden. His homeland is ravished by the black plague and impending doom can be seen and felt at every turn. He is also aware of the fact that he is being stalked by Death (Bengt Ekerot) along the way. Unbeknown by those around him, he is actually playing a game of chess with this otherworldly spectre and remains alive only as long as the game continues. <
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>However one ray of hope for a meaningful future appears, found in the guise of a diminutive, naïve traveling performer. His love for life, his wife and child are the only thing that stands between the impending plague, Death and the meaninglessness of existence. Is there a reason for living, or is Death the only viable solution? <
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>Critique: Ingmar Bergman's '58 film `The Seventh Seal' stands alone in a category of its own making. There was nothing before, nor will there be anything after that can match Bergman's existential intensity, ferocious imagery, symbolic content and thanks to the brilliant cinematography of Sven Nykvist, cinematic artistry. <
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>Bergman's uncompromising vision of existence as translated to the movie screen deserves to be studied, dissected and discussed by intelligent, cutting edge filmmakers of the future. As for the viewing audience like you and I, `The Seventh Seal' belongs on every serious film collectors top ten list. I know it's on mine. <
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>Ingmar Bergman ~ 1918 - 2007 <
> RIP

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Seven Stars for this Film!
It's hard to put my intense feelings about this film into words, a film where almost every frame is so imbued with symbolism and of existential dread. When we first saw this film in the late 1960s, the Vietnam War was raging and now of course the equally foolish American invasion of Iraq is destroying so many people's lives. <
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>Bergman supposedly made "The Seventh Seal" (released 50 years ago) because of the fear of nuclear annihilation in the 1950s. Today we have leaders who are as frightening and horrifying as any of the savage charcters in "The Seventh Seal" and who play on primitive fears, just like the religious zealots in the movie do. <
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>Alas, we have no artists of Bergman's stature who can illuminate our despair, our grief, our sense of futility about the world's current state. <
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>I have always thought Gunnar Bjornstrand to be the most accomplished and insightful of all of Bergman's repertory actors. His portrayal of the cynical, but very humane squire in "The Seventh Seal" again confirms my sense that he taps the very deepest corners of his psyche in his characterizations in a way few other film actors have ever done. <
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A Comedic Misfire
This "parody" of American comedy classic "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey" misses the mark entirely. A dark, depressing examination of man's pathetic and ultimately futile attempts to prolong his life, which, unbeknownst to him, are merely steps in a dance held for the amusement of Death, "The Seventh Seal" fails to capture the lighthearted spirit of its source material. Max von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand do their best with the script they are given, but one cannot avoid making comparisons with their counterparts Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, who did not simply act in their roles, but illuminated the Ted Logan and Bill S. Preston in all of us. Where, Mr. Bergman, is the time travel? Where, Mr. Bergman, are the evil androids? And where, for the love of God, are the Wyld Stallyons? One suspects that Mr. Bergman has never even seen the original, and this critic begs him to study the craft of his own counterpart, "Bogus Journey"-director Peter Hewitt, who has since gone on to much fame and success with classics such as "Garfield" and "Thunderpants."