| Dir: Ingmar Bergman |
| Sweden | 1957 | B&W | 95min | English subtitles |
| Cast: Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bengt Ekeroth |

Chess and death in a quintessential Bergman parable. A medieval Swedish knight (Max von Sydow) and his squire, home from the Crusades, face a landscape of plague and despair, only to find he must and defeat Death himself in order to reach home to his waiting wife. Dialogues of faith and doubt are balanced by vivid outbursts of religious fervor, the burning of a witch and traveling players who offer a simpler vision of faith and family. Bergman’s masterful black and white palette created indelible scenes that haunt later filmmaking (Woody Allen’s Love and Death) and our contemporary consciousness of filmic symbolism.

Bergmanorama