The Cinematheque

“One of the most beautiful films ever.”

Eric Rohmer

Bergman’s very modern meditation on our search for meaning, presented in the guise of a medieval morality play, is one of cinema’s most famous (and parodied) works. Max von Sydow is Antonius Blok, a battle-weary knight who returns from the Crusades to find his native Sweden ravaged by plague and overtaken by religious zealotry. Observing the horrors around him, this once-pious man begins to doubt the existence of a God who would permit such suffering. When the white-faced, black-robed figure of Death comes to claim him also, Blok challenges the spectre to a fateful game of chess. The Seventh Seal has achieved iconic status in the popular imagination and contains some of film’s most unforgettable images. It was also a milestone in ​“intellectual” or ​“serious” cinema, and instrumental in creating the art-house vogue for Bergman’s remarkable work.