A film so haunting and iconic that the stark black and white atmosphere threatens to escape the TV set and envelop your living room - this is not for the faint of heart or the faint of faith. Or rather, actually, it is exactly for the faint of faith - it stands as an example of a grasp at honest meaning by a man of utmost faith, the knight, in the most faithless of circumstances - returning from a futile war to more futile dying at home in Sweden.Tagging along with knight, as he quickly learns in the film, is the fantastic personage of Death. The image that pervades the mind and memory of this film is, for better or worse, the one of the knight playing Death in a game of chess for the knight's life. For better, because it is such a simple metaphor it serves the film perfectly as the symbol for struggle, man grasping at any trifle to prolong his existence. For worse, because as all simple metaphors, it begs parody. Amazingly, it survived the parody and then some for me - I've seen Bill and Ted play Battleship with Death, after all, so I had ever reason to regard stark Death with a giggle. I did not, and that is thanks largely to the actor's exacting ambivalence - he is Death, he has a job to do, he knows he will win, so he engages chess games and ridiculous begging from actors with equal apathy. Death rather famously has no secrets - and, clearly, has all the time in the world. So he humors the knight with indifference, and his still, cold exterior effectively chill the audience despite the countless jokes. Death is not to be laughed at - today.
The knight resumes his trip home with his squire, and it is at this point that I realized that, though it serves as a backbone, the knight-Death confrontation is not the only thing going on here. As the film progresses, we pick up a motley cast of characters that comes to represent a variety of takes on life / death / God and etc. All, regardless of their viewpoint, succumb to reality (to an extent).
The knight Antonius Block is, as mentioned, a man of ferocious faith whose core has been shaken by the emptiness and death he has encountered in his travels. He is weary and desperate, but absolutely refuses to give up on his faith - practically going to the extent of denying exactly that which he sees, so strong is his want for a meaningful existence. He clings to hope. He continues to ask questions of life even when Death stands beside him as incontrovertible evidence that there are no answers, only Him. He is melancholic, but clings to life - even in the end, when time is "officially" up, he prays for a continuance. Oddly, as much as he clings to the faith he seems to have lost, he also waltzes through life largely unaffected by his surroundings - though he does make a humane gesture toward the supposed witch, he largely ignores all around him, consumed by his inner quest. In his defense, he does have the stress of playing a game of chess for his life to contend with - but in seriousness, the inner battle does seem to, as he notes, pinch him off from the world.
The squire Jons is absolute cynicism and disbelief. He points out the idiocy, acknowledges and stares without fear (or so he claims) into the Void, and hates the hypocrisy of the Church that has cost him ten years of his life. He passes time with distant, sarcastic mockery of the life the others invest themselves in. He shares drink and misery with an artist; he brands a corrupt churchman with a knife; he ultimately brings a jaded but learned too cool for school outlook on life to the film. And, in all of this, he remains a squire - faithful to his master, subservient to his commands even as he lectures him on the Void. In another great line from the film, as Death is about to take them all and he is asking his master to stop praying to no one, the master's wife tells him to shut up - he obeys, but notably "under protest." (Another interpretation is that he accpets death, but "under protest." This would brand him - ha - as an unwavering existentialist, incidentally). I can't help but feel he exhibits a hipster take on life, one that anticipates the hyper-irony of art in the late twentieth century. Again, he is no better prepared or exempt from the big D. Existentialism, too, caves under the weight - but he at least seems to be able to better hide his suffering than the knight.
The actors represent a variety of views - one of simpleton innocence, and the comfort that such mindless faith can bring. The actor Jof, his wife Mia and their son Michael rather obviously reference the J-M-J group from the New Testament. Mia has a wide-eyed appreciation of life and faith and love and sings simple praise songs - she at most acknowledges the death around her, at worst grins whistlingly through hell. Her husband, Jof, though, is something of a mystic - and while he grips the wholesome pleasures of life, too, he also has visions of Mary and Child, angels, and Death (as he plays chess with the knife). This is possibly something I'll just coin "Evidence-Based Faith," so despite his shared simpleton views, I place him in an odd category of simple faith - he actually has some reason to believe that all will be okay. This also gives him a kind of access to the spiritual realm that the knight lacks - the knight at one point asks if he can speak to the devil, b/c he thinks the devil will know something about God. No access is granted to the knight, who would seemingly give anything for just the types of visions the actor has regularly. The third actor in their troupe, Skat, is a man of the material - he needs his sleep, he focuses on scoring chicks as a life's meaning-endowing pursuit. He mocks death, in a sense, or rather dies a mock death. And then a real one. Aside from his materially-obsessed character contribution, he also gives the film a classically hilarious line - when Death is about to, well, kill him, he queries "Is there no exception for actors?" No, it turns out, there is not - said the immortally cased in celluloid image. (I know, I know, "said the immortal 1's and 0's").
Raval - holy crap. Ha! Raval is a lower-rung member of the priesthood who 10 years ago convinced Antonius to leave for the Holy Lands; today he steals fake silver bracelets from plague-dead bodies. He is an official holy man who has lost his faith; and even in his on-paper holiness he is just as susceptible to the Plague as everyone. He also tries to RAPE the unnamed woman who catches him thieving, ultimately receiving a facial scar as punishment. Yeah, Bergman is way less than subtle - actually, as a rule, I'll get into that - but he notoriously has a bad youth with the Church. Raval is his revenge, of sorts - organized religion as corrupt bastard is embodied here. Raval is really more evil than death here - he chooses the belly-crawling lifestyle he leads. He pays for it, dearly - and rather loudly, I must add - but really, pays for it no more than the others who theoretically have committed no other crimes and/or sins.
The Unnamed Lady - She survives a rape attempt thanks to Jons, and in turn becomes his... cook? or something. She is unnamed; she is silent except for one stunning line at the end. She, I think, represents a faithful submission - she is perfect as all eyes can tell; when Raval comes around, plague-ridden and gasping for air, water, something, she actually tries to carry water to her former would-be rapist, only to be stopped by Jons. (Take a second to reflect on the subtlety entailed by the church attempting to rape its most faithful and submissive member). She is stunning, and she watches on in retched acceptance as the witch is burned with the rest of them. Interestingly, when Death comes around, she practically beams with joy, and speaks "It is finished." A Christ reference, btw. So take that for what it is - she who faithfully believes and serves so powerfully that she greets Death with open arms.
The film is incredibly richly drenched in brilliant scenery and symbolism; as the game winds down, the characters, in their flight from the plague and Death, are really just getting closer to that destination. The knight wants to "do one meaningful thing" with the time he has bought with the chess match, and he does it: he frees the trinity actor family, distracting Death with his clumsiness so that they can ride away. I could not decide how to take this - was his rescue of the faithful, the happy and the embodiment of the beautiful in life - was that some kind of answer to the dilemma? And if so - doesn't the knight see the inevitability of Death catching them at some point, too? Odd. And really, unfulfilling - the knight, as it turns out, does not happily embrace Death even with his accomplishment; really he cowers and cries to God.
I prefer to remember the knight's other grasp at meaning in the course of his flight from Death, one that actually happens just before another round of chess. The shared strawberries scene is unspeakably beautiful and well-executed, from the at-ease postures of the knight to the skull looming fuzzily in the background. Life seems to exist within this tiny scene in the movie - temporarily yes, by definition, but it's there. The knight even vows to carry this memory with him (only to lose the memory, seemingly, by the end of the film). It's the odd film that makes you stare at its middle, its belly for answers rather than its curtain close. The ending is obvious - most of the characters die, succumb to Death, join a dance macabre as the Jof speaks lines from the Book of Revelations. The belly of the movie is this - fleeting comfort for the turmoiled knight, brought about by the company of simple-minded strangers.
I'd be the first to jump and agree that the likening of simple, unknowing, and faithful with happy is a played one, cliche and entirely unoriginal. But that fleeting moment the knight shares with them - when he embraces their version of happiness not for himself but for them - that is the beauty that sparkles through. It's a stupid and insufficient answer for the knight, who ultimately returns to his mind-ripping terror at the Void. He's just as tragically reduced at the end of the film as he was at its beginning; nothing is solved. So Death still has no answers. But at least that moment existed.
Oh, yes, and as far as the experience as film is concerned - brilliant acting, dialog, filming, a slow but invigorating pace, excellent scene construction - I could wax on and on. The imagery is unforgettable. I can definitely see how some would find the film agonizing, the lack of subtlety irritating, the subject matter alternatingly terrifying and yesterday's news (yeah, everybody dies, got it - I can hear them now) - but I was enthralled. Master film, no question.
(I'm adding this as a post-script - the character Jons is nothing short of excellent. He talks the talk excellently, waves the Existentialist banner with pride - but he also fears death, also adheres to some very traditional morals. I don't think he serves as critique, condemnation of condoing of that viewpoint - he just artfully shows its multi-faceted aspects, including the good with the bad. His life of action - again, saving both Jof's and the unnamed girl's lives - gives his dialog and existence a weight that the knight to some extent lacks, and for that reason I view him as more of a hero. but again, he dies. Everybody dies.)
(I will add another thought - "Oh, I did not see that." That's what the knight says as he loses his Queen in the chess match. Um, I call B.S. No intellectual knight would "not see" an opening he had left to take his queen, or certainly would not not see such a thing in the moment as it took place. So do I damn the film for a lack of realism? No, nor would it be very on-task to criticize a film's relative realism on the basis of how a character fared against Death in a game of chess. I speculate that this is evidence that the knight is losing on purpose - he is giving up his life to save the actors. That at least removes the accusation that the knight makes no sacrifice in the film. Really - I like this. That queen thing was bothering me, but now it makes sense - huzzah for our side.)
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