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Fantasy, Drama 96 min NR
Rotten Tomatoes93%Metacritic88IMDb
The story of a challenge to death.
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
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Prestige, contemplative, meticulous and bleak.
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Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Taste Buds's numbers.
Now of course everyone’s favourite Max von Sydow film is “Flash Gordon” (1980) but I reckon this performance for Ingmar Bergman might be almost as good! With the dreaded Black Death sweeping his homeland, “Block” (MvS) returns from the Crusades with his squire “Jöns” (Gunnar Björnstrand) only to find himself barely off the boat before he encounters the apparently quite reasonable grim reaper himself. “Block” invites him (Bengt Ekerot) to play a game of chess, on condition that he is left to live for the duration of the game and that if he wins, then he is to be allowed to go free. The game isn’t played as one continuous effort, though, and that allows the knight to travel the land experiencing just how the toxic combinations of the sickness and the religious wars have impacted on a population rife with poverty, fear and superstition. Indeed, as the pair attempt to get to their homes, “Block” begins to doubt his own hitherto unshakeable faith in God. There might be a semblance of salvation on the horizon for him, though, when they encounter a group of travelling actors whom he agrees to act as bodyguard for through the perilous forest en route to his castle. It’s his association wit
Read the whole review on TMDB**The universality and invincibility of Death, the fear of dying, the importance of faith and its use by the Church in a timeless film, but not suitable for everyone.** The film, set in the late Middle Ages, begins with a knight returning to his homeland in Sweden after participating in the crusades. When he spots the figure of Death, who has come to get him, he decides to try to gain time by inviting her to play chess: if he wins the game, Death will not take him. What follows is a huge film essay around the themes of death, beliefs, faith, religion and the role of spirituality in human experience. While the plague is raging and claiming victims, we see people increasingly scared, and blindly resorting to faith to protect themselves from what looks like the end of times. We see people's daily lives, with their mistakes, virtues, sins and difficulties. We see the knight himself, with a growing fear of dying and struggling with deeper and deeper doubts about faith, the existence of God. Furthermore, we also see how the Church exploited the fear of death to reinforce its power, influence and relevance within uneducated communities shaken by the epidemic. The ending is simple, but the
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“Is this Ingmar Bergman's best work?”
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18 profiled raters. Loved most by The Prestige Hunters; disliked most by The Prestige Hunters.
If you loved this film, the television, the book, the music, the game.
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