The Seventh Seal
The Seventh Seal Swedish Det sjunde inseglet is a 1957 Swedish dramafantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in Sweden during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight Max von Sydow and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death Bengt Ekerot, who has come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play Wood Painting. The title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation, used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.Rev. 81 Here the motif of silence refers to the silence of God, which is a major theme of the film.
Disillusioned knight Antonius Block Max von Sydow and his nihilistic squire Jns Gunnar Bjrnstrand return after fighting in the Crusades and find Sweden being ravaged by the plague. On the beach immediately after their arrival, the knight encounters Death Bengt Ekerot, personified as a pale, blackcowled figure resembling a monk. The knight, in the middle of a chess game he has been playing alone, challenges Death to a chess match, believing that he can forestall his demise as long as the game continues. Death agrees, and they start a new game.The other characters in the story, except for Jof in the end, do not see Death, and when the chess board comes out at various times in the story, they believe the knight is continuing his habit of playing alone. ........
Source: Wikipedia
