The Seventh Seal is not all heavy 'significance', however. He even asks a woman being taken to the stake if he can see the Devil so that he can ask him about God but all she says is to look into her eyes. 'Why does he live on inside me, mocking and tormenting me till I have no rest, even though I curse him and try to tear him from my heart' Block asks Death if he knows anything but he knows nothing. 'Why can't I kill God within me?' he asks. But Block still senses the God within him and is tormented. But he remains silent, I call out to Him in the dark but no one seems to be there'. He says to a priest during confession, `I want God to stretch out his hand to me, reveal himself and speak to me. Block is tormented by the fact that God will not outwardly reveal himself. Bergman's message, however, is more about the silence of God on earth than in heaven.

The film opens and closes with the passage from Revelation from which it takes its title: `When he broke open the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour' (Rev 8:1). In The Seventh Seal, however, Death is not frightening or sinister, just an old man performing his job with a wry detachment. As in the Greek legend of Kronos and medieval folklore, Bergman depicts Death as the Grim Reaper, a man clothed from head to foot in a black habit and hood. It is the time of the Black Plague and Death has his hands full. Penitents flog themselves, seminarians rob the dead, people go mad from fear, and witches are burned at the stake. It is the 14th century and suffering and pain abound. While the game goes on, he gets a reprieve. In the magnificent 1957 classic The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman, Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow), a knight returning home from the Crusades with his squire Jöns (Gunnar Bjönstrand) meets Death (Benkt Ekerot) on a lonely beach and challenges him to a game of chess.

The seventh seal 1957 ingmar bergman