THE BIG GAME

A film only for chess fans? Absolutely not, even though we are dealing with the tale of one of the most compelling chess matches ever played: in fact, there were 24 clashes played in Reykjavík, Iceland, between July and August 1972, and which constituted the final for the world chess title.

It is the true story of Bobby (Robert James) Fischer, capable of keeping the viewer tethered to the screen. The original title of the film is Pawn Sacrifice(literally translated, “The Pawn Sacrifice,” the, only apparently, least important piece on the chessboard).

We are looking at a character with serious problems at the psychic level that have affected his existence, and the plot shows this extremely clearly: a striking example of genius and madness at the same time.

The match between the two chess masters is also a challenge of civilization, as seen throughout the film: Americans versus Soviets. The opponent par excellence, in fact, is Boris Spassky, chess grandmaster, world champion from 1969 to 1972 and eight-time gold medalist at the Chess Olympiad. Here, then, is where “political” strategies come into play in the film, involving even the secret service and whitening those who think they can reduce chess to a game for kids.

The film helps exhume from oblivion the story of a Brooklyn-born wunderkind whose precise biographical picture has been very difficult to draw precisely because of his madness. Add to this a hostile attitude to that system that wanted to, precisely, pigeonhole it into a (cold) war between two opposing blocs.

The protagonist’s paranoia manifests itself at its most stressful when-as we see in the film-the great challenge is approaching (and in the course of it): the demands presented by the two contenders have the absurd, and the details offered by the screenplay help us understand how serious that confrontation around the chessboard was. In this respect, one cannot overlook the excellent acting of Bobby, played by Tobey Maguire.

A serious biopic, then, documented, realistic and even considered by some to be brutal because of its strong social and cultural impact, capable of engaging even those who, of the chess world, are completely unfamiliar.

In fact, the world of chess, while remaining a closed world, for the few, with the film (which succeeds in clearing the protective barrier that castles it), is offered with a clear cross-section showing how its excellence is capable, on a national level, of engaging even the most skeptical and distant.

The film’s final scenes, without making any spoilers, tell us how the American champion’s paranoia and obsessive delusions led to his death on Jan. 17, 2008, far from his native country, while he was exiled because he had neglected to comply with the U.S. embargo on Balkan countries.