THE SEVENTH SEAL

Ingmar Bergman's most celebrated film, THE SEVENTH SEAL stars Max von Sydow as Antonius Blok, a 14th-century knight who returns home after a decade fighting in the Holy Crusades to find his plague-ravaged country in a frenzy of self-flagellation and witch hunts. When Death comes to claim the knight, Blok challenges him to a game of chess, hoping to gain enough time to overcome his spiritual doubt before he perishes. As the fateful game progresses, and the knight and his squire encounter a gallery of outcasts from a society in despair, Bergman mounts a profound inquiry into the nature of faith and the torment of mortality. One of the most influential films of its time, THE SEVENTH SEAL is a stunning allegory of man's search for meaning and a work of stark visual poetry.

"A magically powerful film." - Pauline Kael

"THE SEVENTH SEAL was as important to the development of world cinema as the New Wave in France or the work of Fellini, Antonioni and Bertolucci. It continues to enthrall each new generation with its complex investigation of love, self-sacrifice, and the problems of pain and death." - Peter Cowie