Starring Boris Barnet, Vladimir Fogel, and Natalya Glan
Produced by Mezhrabpom-Rus
Russia is abuzz with an international chess tournament and one young man has caught chess fever. And it's a bad case. He sits in his apartment playing a grueling match. Against himself.
Suddenly, he realizes the time. It's noon, and he was supposed to be at his fiancée's at ten. He fights his way through his other apparent obsession, a room full of felines, and heads off to meet her.
His fiancée is the opposite. She hates chess and does not understand the obsession. The boy arrives to beg forgiveness. He places a handkerchief on the ground, drops to one knee and... uh oh. The handkerchief has a checkerboard pattern. The boy looks at it, reaches into his pocket and produces a couple of chess pieces. May as well try out some moves while he's down here.
His girl is not amused. She so upset in fact that she heads off to kill herself. The boy, now despondent, climbs to the top of a bridge. The girl heads to a chess-obsessed apothecary who gives her a vial of poison. The boy, realizing the error of his ways, decides to give up chess and throws his books and guides away. He races to save his fiancée.
The girl goes to take the poison and... even the vial is shaped like a chess piece! A man approaches her and soon they are bonding over his lack of interest in chess. Of course, the man is in reality Capablanca, the world chess champion. The boy, just missing the girl, decides to head to the chess tournament.
Will the boy be able to cure himself of chess fever? Or might the disease be more contagious than we realize?
Chess Fever is both a slight comedy, but also an examination of a ubiquitous human failing: obsession. Eighty-five years ago in Russia it was chess, but today it could just as easily be sports (have you listened to sports radio) or the Internet (we welcome you, our Facebook masters).
So here we have a hero who has an unhealthy relationship with a board game. He not only plays the game and follows the tournament, but his hat and clothing have chess elements to them. Is it weird to wear your obsession about town? How many of us own paraphernalia from our favorite hockey team? Like a Philadelphia Flyers t-shirt or six (of course, I am just speaking hypothetically)?
Yes, Chess Fever is an old, silent, Russian comedy, but it's very contemporary in its themes. Is it funny? Sort of.
It's not rolling on the floor laughing. It's amusing throughout. It's so over the top, it's hard not to at least smile. The image of the boy pacing back and forth between both sides of the chess board is so earnest it's funny. Then he goes to leave and is literally pulling cats from every piece of clothing he tries to wear, from shirt sleeves, from shoes, from pockets. He kneels before his love, but then he starts eyeing that handkerchief. It's a humor that will help your mood, but not elicit a chuckle.
There's also a subversive element to the whole thing. Chess is a game of individual achievement and the film fetishizes the game's champions as rock stars. There is an element of the collective here as everyone seems to be in love with the game, but it struck me how much this movie emphasized the needs of individuals. The boy's obsession and the girl's "chess or me" ultimatum are hardly socialist ideals. That aspect of the film stood out, but it may have as much to do with my recent viewings of Battleship Potemkin and Aelita.
Chess Fever is a short, quirky, fun little comedy. If it were made today, it would be about a movie-obsessed geek ignoring his girl while sitting in his basement in his underwear debating why the upcoming Smurfs movie didn't set its tale in Smurf village instead of bringing six of the little blue men to New York. And seeing how that road of discourse starts to hit a little too close to home, I'll stop and give Chess Fever a:
***1/2 out of *****
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