Film Diary: The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

Finally I've got around to signing up for DVD rental from Amazon, so I can at least partly overcome a major source of frustration in my life, the lack of somewhere to see the classic films which I love. Watching on the computer isn't ideal - what I would really like is an auditorium in which to share the film on a big screen with fellow enthusiasts.

I was spoiled as a teenager, having easy access to the Welwyn Garden City Film Society, whose long-time Chair was Fred Aicken, a genial Ulsterman (and prolific contributor to the letters column of The Guardian over the years) who also happened to teach me chemistry. He publicised the society vigorously within the school and his enthusiasm was infectious. That was how I got to see films like The Seventh Seal for the first time, Fred Aicken's legacy to me of chemistry is questionable, but he taught me to love and understand the cinema.

Anyway, The Seventh Seal remains, thirty-five years after I last saw it, a magnificent film, utterly mesmerising and as fresh and relevant today. But what really impresses me is that it takes on dark subject matter - the film is about death - without flinching, but it does this without histrionics. There's also room for a lot of subtle humour, and the characters are utterly believable.

Films like The Seventh Seal are timeless, and it is a crime that they are kept away from the public in favour of the disposable tosh being churned out by the Hollywood bean counters.