Given that my Netflix queue is chock full of movies that came out before I was born and given that I'm just seeing many of these for the first time because of being raised on crap '80s movies, I'm going to assume that there are a number of people my age and younger who may be in a similar situation. So, as a service to the public and totally not as a means of attention whoring, I thought I'd take notes and write reviews of these movies. I'm not by any means professional in pretty much anything I do, so I wouldn't expect it here. That said, I will have more to say than, "Worst. Movie. Ever." or "Hated it!" if I don't like a movie. I'm nothing if not a verbose son of a bitch.
Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal is one of those movies you see parodied or referenced an awful lot. The movie takes place in Sweden, with Antonius Block, a knight, and Jöns, his squire, returning home from the Crusades. We find the two on a beach when the Knight (played by Max von Sydow) is approached by the hooded and robed Death. The Knight challenges Death to a game of chess, and so long as he can ward off Death, he can remain alive to get his affairs in order, and if he happens to win, he gets to live, apparently forever.
During his journey back to his castle, he meets an assortment of characters, from a troupe of actors to a blacksmith and his wife to a girl that is to be burned as a witch. All of these characters help Antonius along on a metaphysical journey as he and Jöns make their way to Chez Block.
When Antonius and Jöns arrive at his castle, with the blacksmith, the blacksmith's wife, and Jöns's wife/housekeeper (that he picked up along the way) in tow, there's a last supper served by Antonius's wife before Death comes for all of them, as Antonius had recently lost his chess match. The movie ends with the moon-touched juggler, Jof, seeing Death leading everyone else in a sort of dance on the hillside.
As I've said, there are a number of movies and television shows that have made reference or parodied this. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey comes immediately to mind, as they challenge Death to games such as Battleship and Twister. Interestingly enough, Metalocalypse also comes to mind, particularly with Toki Wartooth's father, who looks very much like Death from The Seventh Seal, the only exception being that Toki's father also sometimes wears a sort of Amish-looking hat. Oh, and how could I forget? This reminds me of every single college student film project ever, not necessarily in content, but in style. I guess it just shows how influential the movie was that it's so oft copied.
There's a ton of symbolism and existentialist philosophy in the movie. Jöns seems to be the person in control through much of the movie. Jöns seems unconcerned with the nature of God and often laughs as he remarks that he needs no one but himself to give his life meaning, though at other times he chooses to believe that life is just a big joke and we are the butt of it. Think The Comedian from Watchmen. Contrast this with Antonius, who is filled with angst over his lack of knowledge of the nature of God and the meaning of his life. For the uninitiated, these are some pretty heavy duty existential and absurdist concepts at work here.
As for minor stuff? Holy crap is Max von Sydow young in this movie! He's so thin, so young, so blond! Having seen him only as old characters such as Brewmeister Smith and Ming the Merciless, it's just so weird seeing him 20-30 years younger. I could hardly recognize him.
Oh, and interesting movie tie. In the movie Strange Brew, the name of the brewery where all the mind control experiments take place is Elsinore Brewery. In The Seventh Seal, the acting troupe was initially heading to the town of Elsinore. Max von Sydow was in both movies. Of course, I'm sure there are people smarter than me who will recognize the link between The Seventh Seal and Hamlet, what with Hamlet taking place in Elsinore and the characters of both Jöns and Hamlet's gravedigger having similar absurdist attitudes toward life and death.
My next old ass movie that's coming to me will be High Society, so hopefully there won't be all this philosophical crap that I love but no one else does. No, in the case of High Society, you should expect a lot of unfavorable comparisons to The Philadelphia Story.
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