Introduction

The Seventh Seal (1957) by Ingmar Bergman is one of the must-see movies. It is the story of a knight who comes back to Europe after 10 years on the Crusades. After surviving many battles, the ship that brought him back sank and the movie starts by showing him and his companion dead on the beach. The embodiment of death, wearing a long black coat and hood, and with a face so white that one would believe that there is no blood left in his body, comes to take them to his realm.

In a moment of magical realism, the knight speaks from beyond death and manages to bargain some extra life time; the time of a chess game that will last the whole movie. During this game, which they play bit by bit at night, the knight wanders in his homeland that is ravaged by bubonic plague and wonders about life, death, and God. In a very important scene, the knight who has lost faith in God after having fought in his name during the Crusades, enters a church and starts speaking to a person whom he thinks is a priest. The dialogue is here transcribed verbatim: