Do not think too much

The Seventh Seal

After I saw a Fellini film (the other director besides Bergman that Woody Allen absolutely loves) and “Au hasard Balthazar” (another grand film from the Arts&Faith list I have always wanted to see), I figured the next film for me watch absolutely had to be from Ingmar Bergman’s faith cycle, with Tystnaden, The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light. Since Tystnaden is not on Netflix, I figured I shall just go with this film, especially considering that it has been on my to watch list ever since I started this blog.

I knew nothing about the film, the only thing that intrigued me was that the main character is playing chess with Death, determining his fate through that. And now, it turns out that one of my undergrads (an Indian to boot!) has seen the film as well, and he recommends “The Firemen’s Ball” to me. Wow.
He also reminded me that the Georgia Tech library has a million movies you can rent… I should perhaps do that instead of getting even more addicted to Netflix.

At any rate, I thought this film is much more inspiring than “Au hasard Balthazar”. Balthazar is great because of the allegories, the sadness and the symbolism (and annoying because of Marie’s storyline); “The Seventh Seal” is great because of what it actually shows (and annoying because of nothing particular except I am not a big fan of the Middle Ages).

Indeed, a historical film about the Middle Ages is probably the least interesting for me among all times. But “The Seventh Seal” shows how much humanity was in that time. I found one particular funny scene very typical for Bergman (Incredible, right? A typical Bergman humor!), where blacksmith and his wife got back together and Jöns predicts the next sweetness she is going to say to appease him. Pure humorous brilliance. It made me of Loris commenting on his friends’ ongoing chess game like it was soccer.

Most of the film is serious and meaningful though. Facing death constantly in the film, the whole film is about the most haunting questions in the world: What is life for? What is God doing out there? Why are we born and why do we die? The fact that Bergman is able to bring in so many amusing scenes into a bleak film in black and white is absolutely wonderful.

Going beyond showing spirituality in the form of a Passionsgeschichte like “Balthazar” or Dreyer’s “Joan of Arc”, this film shows ourselves, how a humble man struggles in an environment where both the imagery of God and Death are everywhere. The terror in the girl’s eyes when she was about to be burnt to death, the sudden kneeling down of people upon the view of flagellants… with all this, Bergman reminds me how much I dislike religions and how incredibly dark the past especially of Catholicism was. Religious fanaticism is the main reason why I have a certain contempt for the Middle Ages above any other time. There is nothing beautiful from that time except… the beauty of the Notre Dame de Paris.

In terms of what it transports, the film would have been so much greater if it was able to capture what I would call ‘the emotion of faith’. Whatever practices they had in the Middle Ages is the exact opposite of what makes my heart tremble. I grew up protestant, but with parents who visited churches on every trip they make to other countries. Every time, I was smitten with grandeur of Catholic churches, it’s a feeling I have never felt in any non-Christian church. The first time I did not feel this solemnity in a church was in Krakow which must have been when I was 18 or 19. I had turned into a complete atheist by then. Moreover, the most significant remain of my “religious childhood” is the fact that I start praying when something really, really bad happens to me. It’s not even necessary conscious, it’s more that at these times of crisis, a thought (precisely quoted) such as “Lieber Gott, bitte lass mich das durchstehen” would slip into my mind. I’m not kidding, I really think “lieber Gott” (dear God). I see this concept of God so much clearer in Fellini’s films or this incident when I was in Frankfurt and walked into the beginning of a mass, I saw girls kneeling down in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, with a humbleness I thought impossible nowadays. I don’t believe in that stuff (that just goes against my reason and common sense), but in a movie, I feel something like piety. Religion is like science fiction, except this comparison fails at many levels.

Enough confusing unrelated ranting: I feel like “The Seventh Seal” has brought me one step closer to myself – what I am and what I like. Perhaps in that respect, Bergman is the most wonderful filmmaker of the twentieth century. On the other hand, since this film cries “Bergman!” to me from all sides, I don’t know what I would think about it if I were not a Bergman fangirl.