Diagonale du fou (la)
English title: Dangerous Moves
Genre: psychological drama
With: Michel Piccoli (Akiva Israelovitch Liebskind), Alexandre Arbatt (Pavius Fromm), Liv Ullmann (Marina Fromm), Leslie Caron (Henia Liebskind), Wojciech Pszoniak (Grand Master Felton, a Fromm assistant), Jean-Hugues Anglade (Miller, a Fromm assistant), Daniel Olbrychski (Tac-Tac, a Liebskind assistant), Hubert Saint-Macary (Foldes, Fromm’s business agent), Michel Aumont (Stepan Ivanovitch Kerossian, a Liebskind assistant), Pierre Vial (Anton Heller), Bernhard Wicki (Pühl, the referee)
Director: Richard Dembo
Screenplay: Richard Dembo
Release: 1984
Studio: La Cécilia, Michael Arthur Films et al.
Rating: PG
MBiS score: 8.2/10
As Much a Battleground as a Chessboard
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Story-line: LA DIAGONALE DU FOU takes us back to the 1970s or early 1980s in Geneva, site of a head-to-head chess match between masters of the game. On this occasion, the stakes are especially high since the participants are Liebskind, a Soviet veteran, and Fromm, a young defector now representing the West… both of them genuine embodiments of the Cold War rivalry. Though the playing appears brilliant and merciless to onlookers in the hall, it will pale before the personal issues, psych-out ploys, political manoeuvring and money wranglings behind the scenes.
Pluses: a fine cast led by a convincing Michel Piccoli, Alexandre Arbatt, Daniel Olbrychski, Michel Aumont and Liv Ullmann, a pressure-laden and even paranoid screenplay that goes from one surprise to the next (one particular character might be a triple agent), competent direction, adequate production values, Gabriel Yared’s tortured score inspired by César Franck and, of course, a startling ending.
Minuses: beware the unnerving, ever louder tick-tock of the game clock.
Comments: this modest but interesting movie about a match within a match brings to mind that famous faceoff between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972. If boxing is brutal physically, chess can be intellectually and I truly admire Liebskind and Fromm for keeping their concentration in spite of obsessed helpers and incessant shenanigans around them. LA DIAGONALE DU FOU, an original piece of work whose title refers to the movement of bishops on the chessboard, was a worthy winner of the Louis Delluc Prize and the Oscar for Foreign Film. In affectionate memory of Michel Piccoli (1925-2020).
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