Depiction of a desperate world

Taking its title from the Book of Revelations, it encapsulates, as much in images as with words, a world as desperate as our own. Nuclear holocaust was then Bergman's fear, now substituted by terrorism and climate change.

The central character is Max von Sydow's Knight, returning from a seemingly pointless decade of crusading to a Sweden ravaged by the Black Death. He is challenged to a game of chess by Bengt Ekerot's cloaked figure of Death as the prophesied Time of Judgement arrives. Only a simple peasant, his wife and child give him some sort of comfort.

Bergman's superbly shot wintry images, much like those of a silent film, print themselves indelibly on the mind, while the Knight's search for a God who never answers foreshadows the pessimism of the director's later work. Bergman clearly believed the world was worth saving, but could find no answer as to how. After seeing the film, one doubts if we can either.

The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet)
Cert: PG