Top Cast
-
Michel Piccoli
Akiva Liebskind
-
Alexandre Arbat
Pavius Fromm
-
Liv Ullmann
Marina Fromm
-
Leslie Caron
Henia Liebskind
-
Wojciech Pszoniak
Le grand maître Felton - l'équipe de Fromm
-
Jean-Hugues Anglade
Miller, l'équipe de Fromm
-
Daniel Olbrychski
Tac-Tac, l'équipe de Liebskind
-
Hubert Saint-Macary
Foldes
-
Michel Aumont
Stepan Ivanovitch Kerossian - l'équipe de Liebskind
Overview
During the Cold War, the World Chess Championship clashed complete opposites - personal and political.
Rating
1 Reviews
-
CinemaSerf6 Dec 6, 2025Veteran communist grand master “Akiva” (Michel Piccoli) is in Geneva for the world chess championships against lapsed Soviet “Pavius” (Alexander Arbatt) and it’s quite a grudge match. He won’t even shake his opponent’s hand beforehand. It’s fairly clear that this older man has health issues, but his adversary is not without his own problems as his wife - whom he didn’t defect with - is now seeking a divorce and is soon a pawn of a different kind. With gamesmanship rife inside and outside the press-packed auditorium, this drama follows both men as it fills in some back story and tries to explain why the men are at a loggerheads - all amidst the politics of winning that was publicly crucial to both teams and their ideologies. If you remember the Spassky and Fischer contest from the early 1970s, you’ll appreciate just how much store was set by these intellectual versions of the Cold War and this tries to capitalise a little on those tensions, but the breakneck speed at which the games are played - with little focus on the strategy or skill involved, leaves us devoid of much that is cerebral here. Instead it focuses more on the melodrama of their lives and with a production that lacks for much by way of imagination, I felt underwhelmed by both their characterisations and the undercooked political machinations that promised much, but that delivered little. It’s watchable enough, but I’ve seen more dangerous moves on a dance floor at 3am.
Recommendations
During the height of the Cold War, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer finds himself caught between two superpowers when he challenges the Soviet Empire.
Pawn Sacrifice
The sudden disappearance of a wealthy banker's wife cracks open a dizzying world of secret fetishes, desperate acts and elaborate deceptions.
In the Shadow of Iris
A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.
The House on Carroll Street
After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.
The Quiller Memorandum
Antoine and Olga, a French couple, have been living in a small village in Galicia for a long time. They practice eco-responsible agriculture and restore abandoned houses to facilitate repopulation. Everything should be idyllic except for their opposition to a wind turbine project that creates a serious conflict with their neighbors. The tension will rise to the point of irreparability.
The Beasts
A group of top female agents from American, British, Chinese, Colombian, and German government agencies are drawn together to try and stop an organization from acquiring a deadly weapon to send the world into chaos.
The 355
An adrenaline seeking snowboarder gets lost in a massive winter storm in the back country of the High Sierras where he is pushed to the limits of human endurance and forced to battle his own personal demons as he fights for survival....
6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain
Stéphanie, a police officer working for Internal Affairs, is assigned to a case involving a young man severely wounded during a tense and chaotic demonstration in Paris. While she finds no evidence of illegitimate police violence, the case takes a personal turn when she discovers the victim is from her hometown.
Case 137
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Eleanor the Great
Judith leads a double life between Switzerland and France. On the one hand Abdel, with whom she is raising a little girl, on the other Melvil with whom she has two older boys. Little by little, this fragile balance, made up of lies, secrets and back and forth, cracks dangerously. Trapped, Judith chooses to head forward, at the risk of losing everything.