Seventh Seal

Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 breakthrough Movie ‘Det sjunde inseglet’, better known to English speakers as ‘The Seventh Seal’. I first saw this at school, at the instigation of my English teacher Chris Dixon. The enigmatic title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation [Rev. 8:1], "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour".

This film may now look to some a little clichéd because its powerful images have had a seminal influence on popular culture, but at the time they were striking. To me they still are. The scenes that steer us through plague stricken medieval Europe while knight Max von Sydow plays his endgame with destiny offer plenty for an adolescent mind to grapple with.