Flagellants were, in fact a very real historical phenomenon. Bergman aimed to bring about revulsion for this extreme response to the plague, and thus implicitly condemned religious fanaticism as whole. The musical cues underscoring their arrival and the frantic camerawork make them appear horrific, almost zombie-like. The flagellants represent a religious extreme – piety turned fanaticism. When they arrive in the nearby town, the leader of the flagellants accosts the townspeople by reminding them that death could come for them at any time. The most visceral religious response to the plague we see is through the flagellants, who are so fearful of death and the plague that they turn to self-inflicted violence as a form of public penance. Through the nihilism of Jöns (Gunnar Bjonstrand), the agnosticism of Antonius Block (Max von Sydow), and the fanaticism of the flagellants, we see a diverse set of highly religious responses to plague and death. The Seventh Seal explores the various characters’ attitudes towards death and religion. This puts the film somewhere in the years 1347-1353 (Aberth 2010, xii), during the first major European outbreak of the plague. Though no year is given in the film, we can easily situate the film because of what we know about the plague. The film is set in medieval Sweden (Holland, 266) as plague sweeps through the country.

Beyond the literal presence of Death himself (Bengt Ekerot), the film is steeped in death – from the constant threat of death through the plague to the implied violence and death of the Crusades.

Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) is, more than anything, a meditation on death.

Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman