La regina degli scacchi

It is said that 'art imitate life'. Well, in this case it may be said that 'Life imitates Chess'. This is one of the best well constructed psychological dramas I've seen for a while.

In a lot of ways the plot and characterization remind me of the Guatama Bhudda story in which the heroine,Maria has been shielded by her loving parents especially the father from the disgusting things and terrors of life. She is bought up in an environment of good food, classical music and Chess, at which she is a genius and mentored by a great master of the game,a magistrate of a Family Court. Maria also has dreadful psychological problems in that she hates being touched, is somewhat emotionally unstable and is abnormally obsessed with Chess.

Along comes this reporter, Emilio Sasso who sniffs out a scandalous story about her Chess master who works at the Italian Family Court and has been convicted of being a child rapist and pedophile. He befriends Maria to get more information and dirt on him. This is the start of the plot in which human beings manipulate one another like chess pieces and where scenes are inter weaved and juxtaposed with dog-eat-dog Competition Chess playing where Marie annihilates her opponents without mercy who are the absolute best in their field.

The similarity of the Bhudda story kicks in when Marie discovers a letter by her late mother that she was adopted.

The Judge upon realizing that both his life and career are about to be ruined appeals to Marie to persuade Emilio who by this time has become romantically interested in her to not publish his story. Marie is disgusted and refuses. The Judge counter-moves and offers to reveal the name of her birth mother should she accept a challenge to a Chess game and win. The Judge is so brilliant that he doesn't even have to look at the board while he is playing and makes decisions so fast that he doesn't even need a clock. To put Marie off her game, he confesses the graphic details of his child raping and pedophilia in the past. This is abhorrent but she is still focused and wins. The Judge reveals the names of her birth parents.

Eventually, Emilio writes his scandalous story and ruins the Chess Master's life. The Judge is driven to suicide. Emilio regrets that the man took his life but he does not apologize to anyone for having written and publishing the newspaper story. He loves Marie but she won't let him touch her.

She must at this point find out who her birth mother really was. Eventually, it unfolds that she was a murderess who stabbed her husband, Marie's father 9 times because according to her court testimony, she discovered him raping Marie as child on the kitchen table. She leaves her foster father and the excellent environment of her cultured home to find her real mother. She goes to live with her mother in a depressing environment and finds that she is extremely emotionally scarred and very psychologically unstable somewhat like herself.

I will not ruin the brilliant mind-blowing twist for those who may be interested but the irony of Chess as a leit-motiv and metaphor with self-discovery and the pursuit of truth is most satisfying.

Acting performances, the script and photography are all brilliant.

I liked this movie from the very beginning. The pacing is quite slow, but the editing creates a dynamic feeling of doom, of hidden danger, not knowing exactly what it's all about.

Barbora Bobulova (Maria, the main character) is an excellent actress and she even grows more and more beautiful throughout the movie --she reminds me of a young Sissy Spacek-- and her private chess teacher is so good an actor that one believes to be watching a real character (Toni Bertorelli as Sterlizia, a known pedophile).

The only weak actress in this movie is Valeria D'Obici (Maria's mother), who bogs down all the scenes where she's in (fortunately not very many). The script is really excellent, it takes its time to develop the plot (a really interesting one, since it takes several turns, all of them totally unexpected and perfectly sound), at the beginning they explain that this story was taken from a real one, changing names and probably locations.

I found the background music a bit overwhelming several times and the great deal of raining on the outdoor scenes makes for a cozy feeling, if you like rainy days.

This film grows on you scene by scene, building up to a very satisfying end.

Very well thought out script. Claudia Florio, the director, directs with a firm hand, with not a single hesitation when placing the camera where it would get the most of every scene and every actor.

Even though the movie was made for pure cultural matters, is great!

I really loved Barbora Bobulova as María the chess geek, great photography, and great performance by the Chess teacher.

I recommend it, best of Italian films of the new century.

4 out of 5