I couldn't find the line in the film where Death says he would take everyone with Block, what does he say and why would he do this? Did they get the plague or was it punishment for prolonging Death with the chess game?
shareIt's a poetical movie. There's not much to say. Take as you saw it.
share[deleted]
msaber81....If so, you must be the worst doctor in the world. The plague was transferred by flea bites and spread by rats which carried the fleas. It was not spread by flies or milk. Did you order your doctorate off Ebay or do you just enjoy lying?
shareLOL, exactly!
~What if this is as good as it gets?!~
Bergman's style is not straight forward, rather quite symbolic and philosophical.
In the final scenes, Death and Block are to finish their chess game. Death has obvious intentions of taking Joseph, Mary, and the baby along with Block. Joseph awakens and shares in the reality of Death and Block's chess game. Block, seeing that Joseph experiences this reality as well, knocks over the chess board to distract Death so that the family can escape. This is Block's one meaningful act that he aspired to perform before submitting to Death. The family can continue life, while Block and a number of other characters are taken away by Death (all characters presenting their own existential dilemmas of emptiness and doubt).
This part of the film can be interpreted in a number of ways. For the sake of concluding my metaphor, I would suggest that Block's leave with Death implies a sort of religious "suicide" and a realization that it is painful and almost impossible to live a life entirely in one's thinking and questioning mind; always struggling between forces of light and dark, hope and doubt. By allowing Death to win the chess game, he affirms his doubt and no longer tortures himself with an empty hope for a silent God to speak to him. His physical knocking over of the chess game could symbolize a break from one's questioning mind in order to help others in a meaningful way (as Block helps the couple and their baby to escape Death, in the film).
http://yhoo.it/10tokJ6
Firstly, I think it is a symbolic and allegorical movie, which doesn't follow strict patterns of storytelling and plot and you should comprehend it that way. To me, death taking all of them didn't make much of a sense but my take on it would be that Bergman wanted to convey at the end what texts on theology and especially eschatology have preached mankind all along: man is born to be doomed and ultimate reality of life is death, which is inevitable. The last shot, which depicts death taking people from various walks of life (the knight, the mute girl, the blacksmith, etc.) and walking uphill, forming a sort of 'dance of death' signifies what a great leveler death is. It is a purely symbolic scene which Jof has a vision of. It's not mentioned anywhere in the movie that death has to take them all, but I guess Bergman reiterated on the religious themes regarding human existence when he showed that shot.
shareDeath takes everyone with Block because when everyone is assembled around the dinner table at the castle, they all ate the Salmon Mousse!
share