So, then, my opinion? Well, frankly, the jury is out and I don’t think they’re coming back. Let me get to my quick down-and-dirty description of the film and I think you’ll see what I mean.

The film starts out with some voice-over from, I’m sure, the book of Revelations about seals and death, etc. Then we get up-to-speed on the story as we find two men (and their horses) lounging around the beach. Seems they’ve been kicking ass in the crusades and have returned to a Europe that is being blighted by the black plague. Bummer.

As they’re about to begin their journey, Death shows up and the character Antoine (who I’ll now refer to as Tony and played by Max Von Sydow) challenges death to a chess match. Not an arm wrestle, not a cage fight, but a chess match. And just when I think this is going to be some Bobby Fischer wet dream – a journey starts (what of the chess match? Oh, we’ll get to that later).

They start heading home and then the story cuts abruptly to a traveling theatre show. A clown (?) his lovely wife, their child, and the director (who’s a bit of a dick). Though the clown swears he sees visions and writes really bad songs they let their child wander off buck-nekkid through the grass. She’s smitten with clown/husband. He’s smitten with her.

As the story progresses we come across a town ravaged (?) by the plague. Seems a witch has been tied to a whipping post (great Allman Brothers song by the way). Tony’s company/man servant has some grave issues with the way the church has been dealing with people who might be witches and the like and he has dismissed the church’s teachings as “ghost stories and fables” (something I’m sure Jason mentioned above). Still, Jons, I think is his name – saves a gal from potential killing by the very priest who had sent him and Tony on their journey to do the crusady type things. But then Jons puts the moves on her and then demands that she be his handmaiden (or something).

But what about the “CHESS WITH DEATH THROWDOWN?!” I know you’re asking yourself. Well, Death keeps showing up saying things like: “Tonight…in the inn, it’s f*cking ON!” (okay, I’m paraphrasing here) When Tony – who I think is struggling with his faith, decides to confess his sins to the priest the priest is DEATH! What a twist there. And he stupidly tells death his plan to split his forces on the chessboard battle field. Bad, bad, move.

Meanwhile, the acting troupe is having a good ol’ time putting on a show when a buxom young wench gives the “come hither and take me” look to the director of the show. While the clown and his lovely wife sing another pathetic song that makes no sense – the buxom wench and the director get it on in some bushes.

In the middle of the show the local priest/monk/eunuch constituency decide to crash the party with some flogging and crucifix dragging and overall “we’re all gonna die and you’re gonna die and we’re all fixin’ to die” speechifying. This, as you can imagine, is a real bummer and they put them dang actors in their places.

A little while later there’s some drinking going on and the clown actor dude gets picked on by the distraught husband of the buxom gal. He DEMANDS to know where his wife is (and we haven’t seen her since the running off into the bushes). Still, he’s a drunken pissed off man and he tortures the said actor/clown guy – making a fool of him: “I SAID, STAND ON YOUR HEAD. I SAID, DANCE LIKE A BEAR!” (note, this is more done by the slimy priest bastard who stole a silver bracelet from a dead woman, and was planning on killing the gal who now is Jon’s assistant AND sent Tony and Jons on the trip to wherever to do that whole crusade tour). When Jons shows up, he lets actor guy go and cuts the priest guy real bad.

Now they’re all together on their journey – after some strawberries and cream and more buck-nekkied baby nudity.

Just for grins, let’s recap:

Tony playing chess with death (on occasion)
Tony questioning his faith in God
Jons now an atheist or agnostic or…
Jons now with hot babe he saved from bad priest
Bad priest cut up bad
Clown and wife and naked baby are traveling
Carpenter dude sad that wife is gone
Dick director gone

They travel through the forest when, lo-and-behold, the director shows up with the buxom wife. Carpenter dude goes after him and the wife encourages him to kill the director. The director being a smart guy (kinda) uses a trick knife to “kill” himself and then climbs a tree to hide while they all leave. Death then shows up and cuts down the tree. Seems the director’s time was up.

The evil priest shows up and says he’s got the plague and they let him die, horribly (about time).

As they all continue to travel they end up at a castle (note, early on there’s mention of castle Elsinore which, I think was the same name as the castle in “Strange Brew” another classic Max Von Sydow film). The castle contains Tony’s wife (I think) – the film story got a bit fuzzy at this point – and this is going on way too long.

There’s a scene where the witch gets burned on a ladder and she looks in the eyes of Tony and he’s bothered by it – or something. Tony also plays chess (again with the chess) with Death and he knocks all the pieces off (CHEATER! DON’T YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T CHEAT DEATH?!) after Death has captured his queen. But, really, Tony is only doing this to distract Death from following the clown/actor and his lovely wife and baby.

Note, at this point, the actor can see Death playing with Tony but the actor’s wife thinks that Tony is playing chess all by himself. Which, in Sweden, might very well be a national pastime.

At the end of the film we see that the actor and his wife and child have found happiness while everyone else is lead away by Mr. Death himself. I’ll assume that Tony lost the game.

WHAT I LIKED:

Golly, this film is hard to categorize. I’m seriously right down the middle with it. I don’t really know if I liked it or disliked it. Why? Well there were numerous shifts of tone in the story. There were some moments where it was a bit of light comedy and other moments where I wanted to turn away. I overall liked the exploration of death and man’s relationship with God and the over-reaching questions we all have in regards to God and the existence of such a “being” (if you believe in that sort of thing). There were some challenging moments that I found very interesting.

WHAT I DISLIKED:

The shifts in tone were a bit jarring. Some of the acting was over the top and a bit of the misogynistic dialogue was hard to stomach.

OVERALL:

This film is like a strange dream that you wake up and you only remember bits and pieces and can’t recall if it was a dream or a nightmare. As I said…I’m right in the middle with this film. It’s certainly going to be one that I’ll think about for the next week or so (or until I watch something stupid). I honestly do not know if I could recommend this, or not.