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Feb 02, 2017ansoneesf rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I re-watched Ingmar Bergman's classic, The Seventh Seal, tonight and was struck by what an immensely beautiful and honest film it is; how we all struggle with life and death and the eventual end of our lives and its meaning or lack thereof and the need for faith in something beautiful in the face of death's cynicism, how some of us struggle to be better and get along and contribute to the common good when faced with so much ignorance, adversity, dread and stupid superstitions. If you don't remember the basic plot it deals with how a faithful Christian crusader knight, after spending many trying years in the Holy Land under terrible circumstances, makes his journey back home with his squire after having made a deal to play chess with Death to extend his personal journey to possibly know God, and comes to know God through the people he picks up along the way, Judgment day looms over the film from the beginning in the form of the plague that is devastating his homeland, the biblical references to Judgment Day, and the spiritual angst of the possibility of meeting his own death without having proof of God's existence. All I could think about was how all of the characters are archetypes of the human persona, good and bad, some stronger than others, playing out this play called life. It literally gave me tears of joy.