Jag sa förbanne mig inte ett ord om änglar

I am very pleased to report that the Criterion Blu-Ray of The Seventh Seal (1957) has fixed the serious, serious problems I had with the subtitles on their DVD. Some of the lines are still noticeably elided from the Swedish and I could have done with a more formal language in a few scenes, but the traveling players are once again named properly—Jof and Mia—the duel of invective between the blacksmith and the ham actor is intact in all its rude glory, and there is no longer the reckless simplification of dialogue that took out half the humor, subtlety, and mystery of the original script; seriously, I found Criterion's earlier transfer almost unwatchable. I recommended against it in favor of the old Janus VHS. Now I don't have to do that. And this is a good thing, because The Seventh Seal is one of the films I love best (as I have for ten years now) and want to share. It offers no answers. "Jag bär inte på några hemligheter," Death says—"I have no secrets." It is instead, itself, a question. But whether it's fifty years or seven centuries later, it's one that's still worth asking.

(For karmic balance, this year the Boston Lyric Opera is not selling T-shirts for The Turn of the Screw or any other production. I am frustrated in my quest to wear my favorite operas. At least I've still got Rusalka and Les contes d'Hoffmann.)