Good All About My Mother & The Seventh Seal Essay Example

All About My Mother by Pedro Almodóvar is a comedy drama that was produced in 1999. The film addresses intricate issues such as homosexuality, AIDS, Tran sexuality, existentialism, and faith. The central character of the film is known as Manuela. She is a single mother to a teenage boy known as Esteban. Esteban dies after being hit by a car on his 17th birthday. Manuela then quits her job and goes to Barcelona to look for Lola, her dead child’s father. There she meets her old friend Agrado, who is a prostitute and Rosa, her ex-husband’s wife who is pregnant. Rosa delivers a baby and later dies of Aids. Manuela adopts Rosa’s baby and names him like her dead son Esteban.
The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman is also a drama film. It was produced in 1957. Its major themes are fear of the apocalypse, existential dread, and death. It is a story of a knight known as Antonius Block who comes back from to his homeland that has been struck by the black plaque and challenges death to a game of chess. Block and Jons, his squire, are together most of the time in the film. Jons is loyal to blocks in the scenes of the film where they are together. As the film ends, block distracts death as they are playing chess allowing a family to escape. He is, however, beaten by Death in the game and death tells him that he will be coming for his life. Block then re-unites with his wife, and they share the last meal before Death comes back. He asks God to have mercy on them as they were frightened and ignorant.
It is clear that the loss of Faith by both Manuela and Block comes after a tragedy in life. It is during hard times that both of them have their levels of faith lowered. For Manuela, she had lost her belief and faith in life after losing her son. This we see when she decides to change her life totally immediately after he dies. She quits her job and heads to Barcelona to search for her child’s father. She is really struck by this death that she cannot maintain her lifestyle. Block, on the other hand, is torn between his dissatisfaction with unbelief and being not able to belief. At one point, he asks, “Why must he always hide behind unseen miracles and vague promises and hints about eternity?” He wishes that he could be able to kill the God in him and wonders why he even lives in him. He wonders why god has to mock and torment him all the time and even when he tries to tear him from his heart; nothing ever happens and he cannot seem to get rid of him. He makes this speech at the chapel, and he even confesses that in the dark, he cries out the name of God but it always seems that he is not there. This struggle with Gods existence and his faith in religion comes when Death had appeared to him severally, and he was trying all he could defeat it.
Another shared disbelief between Manuela and Block is that of giving up. The two do not believe in going down without putting up a fight. In the case of Manuela, we see her struggle with her emotions after losing her only child. She struggles and gets her life together and even adopts another child so as to start a new life and family. Block, on the other hand, come home only to find it is plaque stricken. Worse of he is haunted by death who threatens to take his life. He however struggles to the last point where he loses the game of chess to death.
Both Manuela and Block to not have the capacity for faith. Manuela came to a breaking point at some period of the film. She loses her community ethics and first quits her job; she then goes to interact with a prostitute and finally lies to keep the baby she wants to adopt. Block, on the other hand, consults an alleged witch on matters concerning the devil. He, however, never talked to a priest concerning God.
Squire Jons in the film The Seventh Seal seemed to have strength born of his irrelevance. He took things as they came, and he was controlled by a fatalistic attitude. In the film All About My Mother, Agrado is sympathetic and caring. Despite her engagement in prostitution, she has a good heart, and this is seen when she Manuela when she went to Barcelona. Both these characters play great roles in these films. It is, however, Agrado’s character that is more powerful and it is Jons’ character that would succumb to her point of view. This is because Agrado loses her faith and morality not because she is naturally bad, but because she is doing it because she has to.