Gefährliche Züge

Hey, I'm sure there's a way to make chess somewhat exciting in a movie, but this approach ain't it.

Dangerous Moves won an Oscar for best foreign film and has an impressive cast, but it was strangely kind of a bore to watch; even enough to feel like it was a bit of a challenge to finish. There's two people who are rivals and they play chess and there are good actors and they are kind of wasted. That's all there is and now I'm sleepy.

I guess there's a level of basic competency on offer in Dangerous Moves, but that's not enough to make it good, or even passable. It's more of a Dangerous Snooze, really.

I saw this film when it came out in 1984, and since then, have been unable to forget it. I have been looking for it everywhere, from shops to the Internet without success. It seemed to have disappeared from the surface of the Earth. Finally, ARTE, a French/German TV channel, decided to broadcast it two months ago...and of course, I recorded it. It is based around a very simple storyline. A chess match. The two main players in the world. Both russians. Two generations fighting against each other, and also two visions of the world. The oldest generation who stayed and endured the last 50 years of Russian history. The younger one who left, but not unscathed. For them, only one thing matters : Chess, but for the outside world, and their entourage, many other things come into account: propaganda, money etc... From the actors to the plot, I cannot find any default with it. It is soberly and superbly played by Michel Piccoli (it is probably the only film where I really liked him) and the whole cast is a marvel. To be seen absolutely !!!

Geneva welcomes the 23rd world chess championship, which sees the confrontation of the Soviet citizen Michel Piccoli, unconquered for 12 years, with his young fellow countryman, now a refugee in the West, Alexandre Arbatt, winner (conqueror) of the " tournament of the candidates "... The chess is only an excuse for a political tussle, the real game taking place gently in the wings in an East-West confrontation. The whole thing is perhaps a little dated.

Or not?"La diagonale du fou " was extremely well received at the time of issue -it won the prestigious "prix Louis Delluc" and AA- . With hindsight,it's now difficult to understand what the enthusiasm was all about.Heavily symbolic,the movie had high pretensions :the cold war on a chessboard.I must admit that for someone like me who cannot play chess at all,it's pretty tedious.But the biggest bomb is the female parts:what's the point of casting two legendary actresses (Leslie Caron,star of Minelli's musicals " an American in Paris" and "Gigi"and Walters' "Lili",and Bergmanian Liv Ullmann) and giving the first one barely five or six lines ,and the Swedish thespian a fifteen-minute walk -on part?

Two masters of chess duel each other not only in their game but also in their different ideologies. The veteran Akiva is a Soviet Jew and ferocious Communist, master of his game but also dealing with a declining health while the young and restless genius Pavius has defected to the West to escape from the Communist tentacles.

I love that this is billed as the "thinking man's Rocky". First, this assumes that "Rocky" is not for thinking men, which is not necessarily true. It may not be high art, but it's still a good movie. But that aside, I find it interesting to compare a film about a boxer with one about chess players.

Anyway, whether we accept that marketing or not, it really is a good film. I'm curious about how accurate the subtitles are (they notoriously changed "eight" to "ten" in an early scene) but even if the film was silent, it is quite visually appealing.