A swedish movie I was introduced to the translated quotes of which a couple of years ago, by a dear friend, and I liked them, But yesterday I watched it for the first time, and liked it much. Though I don't understand the biblical verses that caused the title but I liked the rest of the quotes very much, a movie with a stunning atmosphere that I've never dealt with before!.
[
Antonius Block lets Death choose which chess pieces to play]
Antonius Block: You drew black.
Death: Appropriate, don't you think?
Antonius Block: I met Death today. We are playing chess.
Antonius Block: Who are you?
Death: I am Death.
Antonius Block: Have you come for me?
Death: I have long walked by your side.
Antonius Block: So I have noticed.
Death: Are you ready?
Antonius Block: My body is ready, but I am not.
Antonius Block: I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.
Antonius Block: Nothing escapes you!
Death: Nothing escapes me. No one escapes me.
Antonius Block: Have you met the devil? I want to meet him too.
Witch: Why do you want to do that?
Antonius Block: I want to ask him about God. He must know. He, if anyone.
Death: Don't you ever stop asking?
Antonius Block: No. I never stop.
Death: But you're not getting an answer.
Antonius Block: Faith is a torment. It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call.
Mia: You don't look so happy.
Antonius Block: No.
Mia: Are you tired?
Antonius Block: Yes. I have boring company.
Mia: You mean your squire?
Antonius Block: No, not him.
Mia: Who do you mean, then?
Antonius Block: Myself.
Antonius Block: Faith is a torment. It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call.
Mia: You don't look so happy.
Antonius Block: No.
Mia: Are you tired?
Antonius Block: Yes. I have boring company.
Mia: You mean your squire?
Antonius Block: No, not him.
Mia: Who do you mean, then?
Antonius Block: Myself.
[
Death approaches Antonius Block]
Antonius Block: Wait a moment.
Death: You all say that. But I grant no reprieves.
[
In response to Death coming for him]
Jonas Skat: Is there no exemption for actors?
Jons: Love is the blackest of all plagues... if one could die of it, there would be some pleasure in love, but you don't die of it.
Jons: Love is as contagious as a cold. It eats away at your strength, morale... If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection.
Blacksmith Plog: You're happy, you with your oily words. You believe your own drivel.
Jons: Believe it? Who said? But I love to give pieces of advice.
Jons: Only fools die of love.
Jons: Our crusade was such madness that only a real idealist could have thought it up.
Jons: Who will take care of that child. God, the devil, the nothingness? The nothingness, perhaps?
Antonius Block: It can't be so!
[
the church painter explains why he is painting a mural about death]
Church Painter: Why should one always make people happy? It might be a good idea to scare them once in a while.
Jons: Then they'll close their eyes and refuse to look.
Church Painter: They'll look. A skull is more interesting than a naked woman.
Jons: If you do scare them...
Church Painter: Then they think.
Jons: And then?
Church Painter: They'll become more scared.
Antonius Block: Is it so terribly inconceivable to comprehend God with one's senses? Why does he hide in a cloud of half-promises and unseen miracles? How can we believe in the faithful when we lack faith? What will happen to us who want to believe, but can not? What about those who neither want to nor can believe? Why can't I kill God in me? Why does He live on in me in a humiliating way - despite my wanting to evict Him from my heart? Why is He, despite all, a mocking reality I can't be rid of?
Antonius Block: I want knowledge! Not faith, not assumptions, but knowledge. I want God to stretch out His hand, uncover His face and speak to me.
Death: But He remains silent.
Antonius Block: I call out to Him in the darkness. But it's as if no one was there.
Death: Perhaps there isn't anyone.
Antonius Block: Then life is a preposterous horror. No man can live faced with Death, knowing everything's nothingness.
Death: Most people think neither of death nor nothingness.
Antonius Block: But one day you stand at the edge of life and face darkness.
Death: That day.
Antonius Block: I understand what you mean.
Jons: But feel, to the very end, the triumph of being alive!
