Film Reviews

Bobby Fischer Against The World

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• Details: US/UK/Iceland / 90mins (PG).

"I would even play against myself… and I would almost always win." Bobby Fischer Against The World would have been a hard sell had Liz Garbus concentrated on 'Bobby Fischer the chess player' rather than 'Bobby Fischer the man'. Strip away all things chess and Garbus has a naked portrayal of a genius who slowly loses his mind and it's a fascinating watching this horrible descent.
Eccentric. Stubborn. Self-centred. Arrogant. Strange. Genius. These are just some things that Bobby Fischer is called throughout the ninety-minute running time. A US champion at fourteen, Bobby Fischer Against The World takes the viewer from the build up to the World Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland, 1972 with then World Champion, the Russian Boris Spassky, and then documents his slow and painful descent into 'insanity', which is what some have described his later condition as.
What's surprising to a non-Chess aficionado like myself, the man was big deal with match updates sandwiched in between the latest from Vietnam, the Watergate scandal and a scoop on a major Ford Motors recall: "Fischer is to chess what Ali is to boxing." Bobby Fischer was important.
Director Garbus litters her documentary with a litany of interviews that do an excellent job of setting up the world of 1972 and the international mood at the time. With the Cold War still in full effect, this match wasn't just Fischer Vs Spassky - it was West Vs East, the Free World Vs Communism. The archive behind the scenes footage go a long way to setting the scene, with Fischer's meticulous preparation techniques and his pbjection to the placement of cameras in the auditorium.
Garbus too attempts to get into the mind of the reclusive genius and tries to find out why a Jewish man would turn into a paranoid anti-Semite. His youth was, to say the least, colourful: without a father to speak of, Fischer was brought up by his political activist mother with whom he was at loggerheads with. At sixteen he asked her to move out… and she did. But Garbus doesn't stop there: there's even a theory that all chess players are a bit twitchy - it goes with the territory.
Where Bobby Fischer fails is when it comes to the chess itself. The interviewees - close friends, chess masters, diplomats (Henry Kissinger pops in for a few words) – are at pains to get across how influential Fischer was, how he would break the rules, how he would drop in amateurish moves to offset his opponent. Game 6 of that World Championship was, we're told, executed beautifully and with precision. The average moviegoer who can't tell his rook from his bishop, however, will be left in the dark as to why this is. Garbus doesn't give the audience anything to compare it to – we're left to take their words for granted.

Review by Gavin Burke