The Seventh Seal (original Swedish title: Det sjunde inseglet) (1957), a film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, follows a medieval knight and his squire as they return home from the Crusades. As the knight finds himself playing chess against a personified Death to delay his demise, the travellers discover their homeland devastated by the plague and the people turning on each other, their despair echoed in the men’s own questions about faith. But some people still manage to hold on to both hope and faith.
[Jöns encounters a man painting a church mural about mass death
]Jöns: Why all this daubing?
Painter: To remind people of death.
Jöns: That won’t make them any happier.
Painter: Why make them happy? Why not scare them?
Jöns: Then they won’t look at your picture.
Painter: Yes, they will. A skull is more interesting than a naked woman.
Jöns: If you scare them—
Painter: They think—
Jöns: Then they think.
Painter: And are still more scared.
Jöns: And fall into the arms of the priests.. . .[Jöns points to a part of the mural with a line of suffering people]
Jöns: What’s that rubbish there?
Painter: People think the plague is a punishment from God. Crowds wander the land lashing each other to please the
Lord.Jöns: Lashing each other?
Painter: Yes, it’s a horrible sight. You feel like hiding when they pass.
Jöns: Give me a gin. I’ve had nothing but water. I feel as thirsty as a desert camel.
Painter: Scared after all?