feeling listless

Who? Death, as featured in the Ingmar Bergman film, 'The Seventh Seal'
Why? When I was at university, I was almost an anti-student. During my year in halls, whenever everyone else was out having fun, getting drunk, getting each other, I would spend my time at home catching up with study or reading or music or in a Friday night, the free videos available at the college library. And since my campus had the main language faculty, this consisted of foreign film from throughout the century. If I’ve any knowledge of world cinema it’s from this time. Kieslowski’s ‘Decalogue’, Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’ and Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’. I had seen the references – 'Bill and Ted', 'The Last Action Hero', 'Love and Death' – but seeing the source, the moment on the beach in which knight looks Death in the eye as he moves the chess pieces sticks in the mind. This was fantasy without swash buckle, heroism in words not swords, humanity not scared of the future river or where it flows. In too many ways, I never saw films the same again – and began to go out more, to see what I was missing.
first appeared 28th October 2001; finally