A refreshingly upbeat tale from Ingmar Bergman chronicling the journey of Antonius Block, a medieval knight returning home to Sweden after a long period of overseas service at the Crusades. The film opens with Block and his pragmatic squire Jons awakening on the coast of Scania, about to make their way back to Block’s estate where his family awaits. Unfortunately for Block, as he completes his morning ablutions the figure of Death is beckoning him to a different home. Keen to delay matters, Block persuades Death into playing chess, with the winner taking Block’s life. As the game unfolds move by move, Block and Jons continue their journey through the beautiful, plague-ravaged countryside of southern Sweden, assembling a growing entourage of troubadours and assorted villagers along the way.
Encounters with the church and its representatives illuminate the reasons for Block’s rapidly diminishing faith – a faith which his squire Jons has long since lost, or may indeed never have held. The postponement of his moment of reckoning allows Block to perform one last act of salvation even as he sacrifices his king to the Grim Reaper, an act which finally gives meaning to his life after his nugatory adventures in the Gulf War of its day…
Unmissable.
(retrieved from MrP’s archive, 09-Oct-2007)
