“There are some things worse than death. If you’ve ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman, I’m sure you know what I mean”, quipped Woody Allen in tribute to Ingmar Bergman in Love And Death.
Oddly, in the fifty years since it premiered at the 1957 Cannes film festival, The Seventh Seal has become a kind of shorthand for depressing, worthy cinema. What nonsense. Even before Death’s sting was undermined by the parodic talents of Mr. Allen, Monty Python and, lest we forget, Bill and Ted, Ingmar Bergman’s most instantly recognisable film was undeserving of its stern reputation.
It is true that The Seventh Seal is capable of wearing its heavy heart on its sleeve. Inspired by the works of that other great Scandinavian existentialist, Soren Kierkegaard, Herr Bergman has fashioned a wandering band of freakish characters aimlessly searching for meaning in an empty universe. They repeatedly call out. But nobody’s home. The One Sure Thing that must come to them all – Death – neatly counterweights this uncertainty.
It sounds dour, but the central image – Max Von Sydow doing battle with the grim reaper in the thrilling arena of chess – doesn’t lend itself so easily to humour for no reason. For all its dark philosophical musings and the monstrous academic baggage acquired down the years, The Seventh Seal is a brilliant comedy. It is, most obviously, a ‘human comedy’, a film that digs Hamlet’s gravediggers and understands that without doubt, there can be no faith and without death, life would be rubbish among the various non-vampire communities.
But it is also funny-ha-ha. The scene with Death felling a tree to get at a bad actor is worthy of Wile E. Coyote. And as Max Von Sydow’s knight returns from the Crusades, the director revels in the grotesquery of fourteenth century Sweden. At any moment a maggoty peasant might undo a passing comely wench. Meanwhile, the Black Death has taken hold. Even for those characters not engaged in an emblematic game of chess, it’s really just a question of time before the bubonic plague catches up. The Church, a racket famed for capitalising on such dire situations, are quick to take charge. As fear and superstition sweeps the countryside, everywhere we see witches being burned and flagellants whipping the living snot out of themselves.
Bawdy songs and a circus troop only add to the weird carnival of the occasion. This is a film that celebrates eating and singing against a backdrop of war and pestilence. It’s about living a little before you can’t. You may not be keen on oblivion but if you got to go, then hopefully, like Von Sydow’s knight, you’ll get to help some cats out and kiss your old lady goodbye first.