DVD movie commentary

Bobby Fisher was the world chess champion who broke the Soviet’s stranglehold on the top echelons of the game.

But, it could be argued that, Bobby’s rise to the top came at the expense of losing his innocence, the shock of childhood incidents causing him to want to be the best at all costs, according to the bio-pic Pawn Sacrifice (2015, USA), which recounts his ordeal, and glory.

According to the film, Bobby’s talent was first spotted by the “official 25^th best player in New York”.

Bobby’s talent, and hard work to single-mindedly think through and refine his game, made him a young prodigy of the game and he rose quickly through the local and national ranks.

He rose to play in the world championships as the top American representative.

But he did not claim the world title the way he wanted, as the youngest ever champion, because of an unfair tournament, claiming the Soviets blocked his entry.

He had to wait until 1972 to win. Pawn Sacrifice builds up to the occasion of his win.

To get there was an unusual mix of the human condition and environment.

As a child, he figured out that to win at the highest level he would have to use his mind.

But he is driven inward because of the issues of his childhood, of distrusting and fearing the ‘enemy’ (his mother was a communist sympathizer in America during the Cold War) and losing his father.

The problems in his mind could not be dodged, though, and his mental health deteriorated.

What really drove Bobby was far from the sugar coated American Dream. Pawn Sacrifice shows us that what drove him came from a colder, darker place, where innocence is torn.

Sometimes, life at the movies is not easily explained, where we can only look and wonder.