Dangerous Moves (originally La diagonale du fou) is an entertaining Swiss production that won the 1984 Academy Award for Best Foreign film. It is fashionable, these days, to disparage it as one of the least worthy winners of that title. It did, however, also win the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc award. The top criticism levied against this film by present day critics and viewers is that it is “dated.” Well, gee wiz! Isn’t any “period piece” dated? Isn’t that the point of such films? “Period piece,” you say? This film is less than twenty years old and its setting is roughly the time of its own production. How can it be a period piece? Well, many a film that was highly contemporary at the time of its release has already become a period piece. The Apartment (1960) is now a period piece. So too is Midnight Cowboy. (1969). Once quintessentially contemporary, such films became simply the flavor of a bygone era once their respective decades had faded into the quaintness of memory. Dangerous Moves has that quality as well, capturing the essence of the now defunct Cold War era and the tensions that dominated the theater of the world for roughly four decades.

Historical Background: Until 1972, world-class chess held little interest for the general public, with the possible exception of the public within the Soviet Union, where chess is a bit more of a national obsession. All that changed dramatically – at least for a brief period of time – with the great showdown between America’s chess genius and enfant terrible, Bobby Fischer, and the Soviet grand champion, Boris Spasky. I, for one, spent many hours in the television lounge at my University, in 1972, on the afternoons during which the tournament was being played out. It was a matter of national pride – us versus them – in the manner of the Yankees vs. the Red Sox (or whatever your personal favorite sports rivalry might be). Although luminous Fischer quickly burned out after searing the skies in 1972, the Cold War overtones persisted in world chess in 1978 in another form. The match, then, was between two men both born within the Soviet Union, but one was the communist loyalist Anatoly Karpov while the other was the Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi. The propaganda value of victory became enormous for the Soviet leadership, who wanted proof that the best Soviet minds were remaining in Russia and devoted to the cause of communism. Many of the “dirty tricks” and mind games depicted in Dangerous Moves were described in Korchnoi’s autobiography, Persona Non Grata. Some aspects of the film reflect instead elements of the earlier Fischer-Spasky confrontation. Still other lines are taken from earlier times in chess history. For example, a line offered by Liebeskind, in objecting to an opponent having an unlit cigarette in his mouth (“It is well known that in chess the threat is greater than the execution.”), was famously spoken by a long-time chess champion from another era, Emmanuel Lasker.

The Story: The story concerns a World Championship chess match between two great masters, Akiva Liebskind (Michel Piccoli) and Pavius Fromm (Alexandre Arbatt). The mind games proceed, in a sense, at three levels. There’s the chess match per se, which the film returns to game by game, avoiding tedious analysis of the details of chess strategy that would be lost on most viewers. Second, there’s the mind games – the psyching out of the opponent – initiated by the players themselves. Then, third, there’s the political intrigues by which the respective entourages of the two players seek to intimidate or distract the opposing player and to keep their own combatant motivated and in peak form.

Liebskind is the aging Soviet champion, under great pressure from Soviet authorities to win – pressures that include threats to his family. Nevertheless, Liebskind’s cardiologist is prohibited from accompanying the chess master to the match venue in Switzerland, despite Liebskind’s marginal health, because the physician is a Jew and considered a threat to defect, since his family is already in Israel. Liebskind is a calm and stoic old world gentleman.

Fromm is a defector from the USSR of Lithuanian descent. He is both suave and impassioned. When a boy, he had once been given instruction by Liebskind, already a great champion at the time. Fromm suspects that the Soviets will employ any tactic to win, including bugging his quarters. It is difficult for viewers to know how much of his concern is reasonable and how much paranoia. Fromm is volatile and given to emotional outbursts from which none of his associates are exempt.

One doesn’t need to be a chess player to get the flavor of the strategic machinations evident in the between-match discussions involving the players and their respective teams of experts. We learn, for example, that one of the players will open with the opponent’s own favorite opening, hoping to demoralize the opponent by beating him at his own best game. It backfires. Another opening is predicated on the assumption that the opponent will counter by “transposing into the Tartakower variation “– which the team believes they can defeat. The opponent, however, opts for a different defense. One doesn’t need to know the meaning of these strategies to appreciate the game of cat and mouse that is underway.

Other factors come into play as well, such as the tardiness of Fromm in arriving for each match, the strategic placement of a hypnotist in the front row of the audience to psych out Fromm, Fromm’s countermove employing a parapsychologist of his own, Liebskind’s resumption of his smoking habit and its aggravation of his health problems, and the sudden appearance of Fromm’s wife (played by Liv Ullmann), who had been held in a Russian mental hospital for over a year. The two great masters fight valiantly to overcome the various obstacles that are thrown at them by life, their opponent, and the political machinations.

Themes: The chess match, of course, serves as a microcosm of that political chess match known as the “Cold War” that dominated international relations after World War II up to as late as about 1986. This is not merely a chess match that we watch. It is communist vs. defector, east vs. west, old vs. young, stoic socialist vs. decadent capitalist, teacher vs. pupil, and, in the end, life vs. death.

Production Values: The director, Richard Dembo, does a commendable job with an inherently difficult task – how to make the game of chess interesting as cinema. Even with the political intrigues, it is a challenge to create pace in a film about something as slow-paced as the game of chess. Dembo also skillfully maintains a neutrality toward the two camps (a classic Swiss stance) that is essential to keeping the story suspenseful. Viewers can’t anticipate the outcome precisely because Dembo is careful not to paint one of the masters (or his politics) as more sympathetic than the other. On the other hand, the script and/or Dembo’s direction fail to delve deeply enough into the psychology of the two chess players. That might have deepened interest in this film.

Michel Piccoli was superb as the aging chess master. Piccoli’s film credits are extensive and include French Cancan (1955), Contempt (1963), The Sleeping Car Murder (1965), La Guerre est Finie (1966), Belle de Jour (1967), Topaz (1969), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), La Nuit de Varennes (1982) and Passion in the Desert (1998). Piccoli, in Dangerous Moves, succeeds at expressing inner feelings and determination using his eyes and expressions, despite his character’s stoic nature. Alexandre Arbatt, though a less familiar face, also does a commendable job with his part as the vitriolic but determined Fromm.

I don’t usually comment about film producers in my reviews, but it is certainly worth noting that the producer of Dangerous Moves, Arthur Cohn, has an extraordinary filmography that includes an unprecedented number of Oscar winners (six), including the documentary winner in 1961 The Sky Above, The Mud Below. His feature film winners have included The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), Black and White in Color (1976), the present film, and Central Station (1998). The only significant extra provided on the DVD version of Dangerous Moves is a pretty good interview with Cohn.

Bottom-Line: The distinction of best chess movie probably belongs to Searching for Bobby Fischer rather than Dangerous Moves. The Luzhin Defense could be another contender. Nevertheless, Dangerous Moves is a suspenseful and well-acted film that will be enjoyable for all who have an interest in intellectual games, psychodrama, or Cold War history. If you lack interest in all of those categories, you’ll likely find this film less enthralling. For me, the strongest aspect of this film was that the narrative developments and outcome were not obvious in advance. An unpredictable storyline is what keeps a suspense story intriguing. The ending – what would be the endgame of a chess match – was innovative, effective, and fully worthy of the build-up in anticipation. I won’t give it away. Dangerous Moves was filmed in French and comes with easy to read optional English subtitles. The running time is 95 minutes.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Switzerland:

Journey of Hope
The Last Chance
Messidor

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12