I got a rather odd gift for Mother's Day from the Resident Fan Boy, although not quite as odd as the Holocaust Encyclopedia he got me for my birthday, some years back.
Years ago, when we were relatively newly-weds, I took him to see The Seventh Seal, one of my very favourite movies. He fell asleep. I was appalled.
This gift is a Criterion DVD. There's a commentary, which I have yet to access (and an essay by Woody Allen, which I plan to ignore), but I decided to watch it a couple of nights ago, marvelling in the crispness of the re-mastered black and white print.
Like all good art, I see something different every time I revisit it. I think the last time I watched it was in 2020. Being set at the time of the Black Death, it made harrowing pandemic viewing. Now, of course, the ever-looming presence of the black robed and hooded Death (Bengt Ekerot), who stalks the Knight (a very youthful Max von Sydow) and his companions between chess moves, is particularly piercing, following my own recent loss.
However, I saw other details that escaped me, even after repeated viewings. This time, I noted that Jös (Gunnar Björnstrand), the knight's sardonic squire, carefully and protectively shifts his body over his dagger, as he sleeps, awkwardly outstretched on a stony beach in the opening moments of the film. I notice his cat-like defiant hissings behind the Knight's back, after being given an order.
I think of the actors, all dead now.
And the Resident Fan Boy? He nodded off. Again.
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