Archive for October 2007
sighs, seals, and lost mojos.
After the insistence of a dear friend of mine, I gave in and decided to watch Ingmar Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’. I have always had my doubts about black-and-white movies, but recently, realizing the lack of content in many contemporary movies, I started to try watching older films, just to see what makes them ‘great’.
The Seventh Seal stroke me as a masterpiece, not just in the time it was made, but even in our day. Bergman adapted it to the screen from a play that he wrote earlier (I later read), which explains the solid content and order of events. The story of the protagonist Antonius Block is nothing short for intriguing, with the haze of Medieval knighthood that surrounds it, added to the daring questions it asks and the bold approach towards faith, life and religion.
Coming back from the crusades, Block realizes a spiritual crisis upon which the beliefs he blindly followed before embarking on his journey are jeopardized. The crisis raises numerous questions that threaten the stability a man’s faith. Block suddenly sees the incongruity and contradiction, and he starts to question and wonder.
The personification of Death, a technique that’s been used during the Elizabethan era and is almost reminiscent of works of great dramatists such as Shakespeare and Marlowe. The tight structure of the plot makes the plotline easy to follow. The cycle of events is fitting to the duration of the movie, and the well-developed characters (not just Block and Death, but almost all characters in the movie) all help in creating a convincing Medieval portrait of life.
So much for my attempt to review a movie … I lost my mojo!
PS: How does one sigh on paper?
