© 2018 by James Clark
We were, in absorbing Ingmar Bergman’s thrilling and strenuous film, Through a Glass Darkly (1961), ushered into a reflection about fearlessness—specifically, the loss of fearlessness. In light of that beacon, replete with a beacon/ lighthouse, we can proceed with a film of his, The Seventh Seal, produced earlier, in 1957, offering a variant of fearlessness sustained, though so incomplete you’d probably miss it.
Our film today affords noticing that its two scene-stealers at the outset, exhausted and inert on a rocky shore with luminous clouds dancing apace, comprise an important contrast to the introduction of Through a Glass Darkly, where four raucous vacationer-swimmers come ashore with a laureling sky above and slag-heap consistency of the sea. Nearby that pair are their horses, looking as fresh and beautiful as can be, not to mention lovely bird song. Nature disapproving of stasis; and the other film’s putting on a brave front being closer to nature. (Here, too, the credits subtly disintegrate in giving way to the next names. The title, once again, has been drawn from a biblical vignette, this time pertaining to a vacuum in the generally good-news-communication between God and the faithful. What does put in a striking appearance is a rather ominous, large hawk.) The two having succumbed to protracted inertia—one of them a knight, bedecked in an impressively-designed Onward-Christian-Soldiers crusader tunic and now washing his face in the surf—appear to have survived a shipwreck (a shipwreck having been a factor in the other film). They’re damn lucky to be alive. Karin, in the other film, shows she’s willing to claw herself toward lucidity as to being lucky. How do our crusaders handle the matter?
The better-dressed of the company, surveying the harsh landscape, clasps his hands in prayer, but soon he brings his hands down and his face clearly spells “out-of-service.” What he unfortunately can do is produce a chess board and spend the rest of his life banking on gamesmanship no one in his right mind would essay. He conjures a spectre (an ascetic priest in flowing black cassock), who addresses him—a sort of kick-off—with, “I am Death. I’ve been at your side for a long time. Are you prepared?” For his part, the supposed aristocrat announces that they should play chess to determine longevity or not. Shook up is his state of affairs, in ways bearing some resemblance to the tailspin of Karin (seen in the previous campaign), after the bilious stage play. The knight declares—from out of that peevish, weakling bossiness we saw in Karin— “If I win, you set me free…” (He doesn’t have to say a word to speak volumes that the stirring military observances were not stirring.) But we’ve already seen enough to know that he and freedom don’t get along. Having been there quite a while, his first impression was him decoratively sprawled on a large rock with the game facility and with a grip upon his expensive sword, like some kind of soft grandee. It seems to me that to get over at the outset any assumptions of viable integrity in the knight prepares for an unexpected keeper (or keepers) of the flame. There is never any doubt where the hope lies, in Through a Glass Darkly. But this saga could be headed toward overthrowing the reflex of counting on elevated families. (more…)
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