... when I finally learned enough Swedish to watch it without the subtitles. The low-budget, shot-in-a-month look isn't the problem (although there's a modern apartment building briefly visible in the woods at one point), but the thing doesn't look remotely medieval. Everything is clean, clean, clean, everybody is freshly washed and freshly made up, the women especially with their perfectly plucked eyebrows, and elaborate hair-dos with hardly a stray strand.

The first time I saw in (in college - where else?), I laughed at the ridiculous cardboard lute and a few other things, but those were momentary glitches. If you actually *look at* the entire film, rather than watching the subtitles, the anachronistic ridiculousness never lets up. I know Bergman is trying to make some points, since there are characters and a plots and all that stuff, but the visuals are too distracting. He should have made it in Finnish or some other language that nobody understands (except for Finns).

Mia: You don't look so happy.

Antonius Block: No.

Mia: Are you tired?

Antonius Block: Yes. I have boring company.

Mia: You mean your squire?

Antonius Block: No, not him.

Mia: Who do you mean, then?

Antonius Block: Myself.

The first time around I found it an awful bore (though to be fair I was a young cinephile at the time just starting to explore foreign film); a few years later I returned and discovered a film that wasn't the dull morality tale I remembered but a film bursting with life and, quite often, very, very funny. On the other hand, the band of flagellants that burst through the village remains one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen in a film (it gets me every time). It has since become a firm favorite, taking on a new poignance since undergoing my own crisis of faith.

I was able to attend the screening of "The Virgin Spring" at TIFF 2007 with the Q&A with von Sydow, and he seems full of the kind of surprising anecdotes you describe from the commentary. Glad some of them are being captured in things like commentaries.

-jesse

I've watched it about once per decade for the last 4 decades. With each viewing it becomes deeper and richer, satisfying the description that a classic is not only watchable, but re-watchable. Sure it has faults, e.g., Jof can’t really juggle, and it doesn’t have the production values of Hollywood. But the squalor of the depiction of the public house with corpulent and vulgar guests and pigs wandering the mud floors, and with corpses turning up on the beach and in deserted houses littered with trash, is in stark contrast with the air-brushed banalities of much of the popular cinema of its day, and ours. The philosophical themes will turn off people who go to the movie for adventure and escape. Another major source of hostility toward the film is the recurrent questioning of religious faith. The principal villain, Raval, is a seminarian. This is not a film for the facile believer, but those beset by doubt and unbelief. For those dissatisfied by what Hollywood shovels out, Bergman’s genius can be found here, and in The Virgin Spring, Scenes from a Marriage, and Wild Strawberries.

What's your take on Wild Strawberries? The 7th Seal I found it was possible to ignore, but Wild Strawberries confounds me. I do have a solution of sorts, but your analysis would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for this analysis of one of my favorite films.

I was immediately struck by this film the first time I watched it a couple years ago. The cinematography is quite good and I found it to be just as you described; funny, unpretentious and honest. I do think that many people have preconceived notions of what a movie like this is supposed to be about, since it is foreign and the subject is existential in nature.

But I was surprised at how really fresh it is. The characters are, each in their own way, relatable. They each seem to represent some aspect of human life; love and family, hedonism and physical pleasure, the intellectual and spiritual. Block was never going to beat death, it was his fate, but during his game, he was able to finally appreciate the life he had left.

My favorite scene was the shared meal of milk and strawberries, the comfort of human friendship, the simple sensual enjoyment of eating and music, breathing and being alive.

I hope your article encourages people to watch the movie with open minds. I'm 26 and thought it was better than anything I've ever seen in a theater.

First time I saw it - didn't get it. But I teach a Bible as Lit class at a high school in the Bay Area, and I had my class read the book of Revelation aloud. Then, for grins and giggles, I showed them "Seventh Seal" to see if they could help ME understand it. My students - a most diverse bunch - were enthralled - as was I. Humor, pathos, biblical allusions. It's all there. A most brilliant picture. Now I have to trade in my previous Criterion Collection copy for the new one.

Great, I have been waiting for years to see it in color.

was the scene at the burning of the witch. Totally mesmerized me. Because Block and his Squire realize that it's all a sham, that she's not a witch, that the devil doesn't exisit, and then Block and a whole lot of us (I was a fairly religious Catholic at that time) get the jab from the Squire: what does it mean, that witches aren't real and there is no Devil? The pain on von Sydow's face, as he both fights and confronts the awful fact that God ain't there, either.

Wow.

Once, it was regularly on Sight and Sound's list of the Ten Greatest Films of all time. It fell off the list around 1990. Bergman in general seems to be in eclipse, as young film people get their clues on who to admire from Quentin Tarantino. I hope that this new release helps people remember just how great a film maker Bergman was.