This documentary is old fashioned - simple, even primitive, simplistic, honest and informative. Not a propaganda piece by any means.
There is little chess involved though. Mostly it focuses on the character of Bobby Fisher and tries to convey the spirit of the times. Interviews with famous chess-masters who knew him paint a brutally honest personal insight into the world's best and most brilliant chess player. Through his debut on the world stage and his uneasy childhood in Brooklyn and his brilliance in the World Championship match, the film conveys a sad decline of apparent madness of both Fisher and the chess-playing world.
A lot of things that should have no connection to sport and chess have influenced the state of competitive chess. There was a time when chess was in a truly lamentable state.
The archive footage is accompanied by solemn Orthodox funeral chants.
There is little chess involved though. Mostly it focuses on the character of Bobby Fisher and tries to convey the spirit of the times. Interviews with famous chess-masters who knew him paint a brutally honest personal insight into the world's best and most brilliant chess player. Through his debut on the world stage and his uneasy childhood in Brooklyn and his brilliance in the World Championship match, the film conveys a sad decline of apparent madness of both Fisher and the chess-playing world.
A lot of things that should have no connection to sport and chess have influenced the state of competitive chess. There was a time when chess was in a truly lamentable state.
The archive footage is accompanied by solemn Orthodox funeral chants.
