- Although I didn't understand the references at the time, my introduction to Ingmar Bergman came from parodies delivered by Bill & Ted, the Muppets, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. There is a particularly amusing contrast between the interpretations of Bergman delivered by these gleefully silly groups and the intentionally oppressive dourness of a film like The Seventh Seal. Although there are occasional glimmers of joy and innocence in Bergman's masterpiece, this is very much a film about plague deaths, witch burning, flagellation, and, of course, playing chess with the personification of death. In other words, not a lot of laughs.
- The basic story is that crusading knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand) return to a Denmark ravaged by plague, superstition, corruption, and death. So far gone are the citizenry that the country's sole remaining virtues are tied up in a single family consisting of actors Jof (Nils Poppe) and Mia (Bibi Andersson) and their infant son. Antonius spends the film searching relentlessly for evidence of God, but his steps are haunted by Death (Bengt Ekerot), with whom he is playing the ultimate high-stakes game of chess. Antonius knows that Death always wins in the end, but the question is whether the knight will find a way to perform some significant act of goodness before it's too late.
- There is something wonderful about a world so grim that people casually read aloud from the Book of Revelation and mention omens like a woman giving birth to a calf's head as though it were the daily news. And hey, it's tough not to love the leader of the masochistic flagellators, who berates the townspeople with lines like "You, with the swollen nose and stupid grin. Will you soil the earth another year with your refuse?" But there is something undeniably compelling about the imagery of a forlorn knight playing a deadly game against an unbeatable opponent. I think the reason that Antonius plays chess with Death is the same reason that all of us go on living each day, even though we know deep-down that there's a Danse Macabre lurking in our future. The film's stark imagery is disquieting and unsettling, but also rewarding and, yes, ripe for parody.
