NekoHomey
Purely Joyful Movie!
Livestonth
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
Casey Duggan
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
gavin6942
Two masters of chess duel each other not only in their game but also in their different ideologies. The veteran Akiva is a Soviet Jew and ferocious Communist, master of his game but also dealing with a declining health while the young and restless genius Pavius has defected to the West to escape from the Communist tentacles.I love that this is billed as the "thinking man's Rocky". First, this assumes that "Rocky" is not for thinking men, which is not necessarily true. It may not be high art, but it's still a good movie. But that aside, I find it interesting to compare a film about a boxer with one about chess players.Anyway, whether we accept that marketing or not, it really is a good film. I'm curious about how accurate the subtitles are (they notoriously changed "eight" to "ten" in an early scene) but even if the film was silent, it is quite visually appealing.
MartinHafer
"Dangerous Moves" is a French film that in some ways is a fictionalization involving the chess champ, Bobby Fischer mixed with some Cold War dramatics. The film is about a long-anticipated match between a Russian Grand Champion (Liebskind) and a Russian expatriate Grand Champion (Fromm). Liebskind is older and ill--and he and the agents from his country are trying to hide this from everyone. Fromm is a nut-case (like Fischer)--very, very, very demanding and amazingly neurotic. Neither man likes the other and due to Fromm's weird antics, it's not even certain that the match will take place. And, when it does, both players threaten to derail it repeatedly.The film is an interesting character study of two seriously disturbed and difficult to like men. I appreciated this, as most films feature more one-dimensional and predictable characters. However, many will blanch at the film's slow pacing and that so much of the film takes place at the match--making it a hard-sell to most viewers--plus there is no hero to root for--just two very determined oddballs. It is very good but also for a very narrow audience. Worth seeing, though, if you are very patient or have a background working in mental health. Otherwise, there might just be some better French films you might want to see first.
elshikh4
Finally a close to perfect work. This film got it all. The conflict, thank god, can be read through more than one dimension, it's how to be rich as a drama, and a thought-provoking film too. One can read it as a brilliant chapter in the cold war's time; the original Soviet communist vs. the Lithuanian enemy of the proletarian revolution. As if it's the eastern block vs. the western world. Then it's a battle of minds between the old generation who believed in something and fought for it, and the young one who rebelled against the first, fighting for the opposite. So it is, as well, the wise old vs. the riotous young. The differences between the 2 main characters are catchy and well-made. One is mystic who loves to unite with nature (great scene, with only music, for him enjoying sailing as if it's a spiritual fun). And the other is more materialistic, with hot pace and temper (enough to remember his leather jacket and motorcycle). I loved the pace, it's meditative and exciting in the same time; which is very hard to achieve by the way. Still the scene of seeking help by external factors to affect the players is smartly comic to the max (that Indian guru, who controls minds, is pure comedy). The 2 lead actors played their roles in iconic way if you will. However nothing is better than the end of it. Simply this film wins immortality by not relaying only on the cold war situation back then, yet it dives into deeper layer to make it essentially a conflict between just humans, who wants to assure themselves in the thing they love. Notice well how it doesn't eventually choose a winner or a loser too, because the game is on and the conflict is forever between the older and the younger. It's how the film – so intelligently – will live for more and more; being suitable to watch anytime or anyplace (it outlived the cold war itself already). So it is satisfying whether as politically, philosophically, or – and that's the most important – as a good effective drama in the first place; where you can watch it only as a thrilling movie about a crucial game of chess between the smartest 2 guys on earth! Naturally, this is one of the best films I have ever seen. Or in another word, this is how films must be made.
dbdumonteil
Or not?"La diagonale du fou " was extremely well received at the time of issue -it won the prestigious "prix Louis Delluc" and AA- . With hindsight,it's now difficult to understand what the enthusiasm was all about.Heavily symbolic,the movie had high pretensions :the cold war on a chessboard.I must admit that for someone like me who cannot play chess at all,it's pretty tedious.But the biggest bomb is the female parts:what's the point of casting two legendary actresses (Leslie Caron,star of Minelli's musicals " an American in Paris" and "Gigi"and Walters' "Lili",and Bergmanian Liv Ullmann) and giving the first one barely five or six lines ,and the Swedish thespian a fifteen-minute walk -on part?
