The Seventh Seal (1957)

The Seventh Seal remains as not only a starkly existential and boldly poetic image of death, but it is also a virtuoso, legendary milestone of film expression as the film cinematically unparalleled philosophical speculation, supported the launch of art-house cinema and delved into the ultimate questions of death and our very own existence. Its main focus is the reactions, anxiety and questioning of God’s existence where life is taken by the shadow of deathly, apocalyptic annihilation and is presented as a grim version of the silence of God through a grand chess game between white and black, a defining moment of the essence of Ingmar Bergman’s symbolism and the main theme: Life VS. Death. The portrayal of dark and light elements in visual opposition creates perfect poetic imagery of the existential struggle between doubt and hope, the grim reaper with the appearance of existential despair against a knight who questions the existence of God. This great film’s climactic conclusion ultimately refers to the surrender of death and this, with the opening scene are the most significant sequences: ‘When he broke the seventh seal, there was a silence in Heaven for about half an hour.’