Dir. Vesevolod Pudovkin (1925)
Not rated Chess Fever is an early Russian short film/comedy about a woman who leaves her chess crazed fiancee because he loves chess more than he loves her. Chess is the talk of the town in the setting of this short film, as there is a chess tournament going on with the world champion. The woman is waiting for her fiancee to come over, but he is unfortunately late because he was at said tournament. When he arrives, the woman looks through his pockets and finds chess pieces and a miniature chess board. She throws them all out the window, and breaks up with him in a fit of anger. She cannot believe that her husband would really put chess before her. Later, she is so heartbroken about her break up that she decides killing herself is the only way out. She stops at a local drug store and asks for the most poisonous thing they have. Just as she is about to drink the poison, a man comes up to her and she vents about her hatred of chess. He agrees, saying he does not understand all the hubbub of this board game. She is happy that she has finally met someone who hates chess as much as her, but then PLOT TWIST, she ends up GOING to the chess tournament! She watches the riveting game being played by the world champion, and finally understands the hype about chess. She reunites with her fiancee, apologizing for being so ignorant to the game before. She then suggests they play a round. The man pulls a tiny chess board necklace from under his shirt, as one does. Rule #1: always be prepared for a chess game. They then hold and kiss each other, happy in their relationship due to a new love of chess. Even though this film is incredibly short, it is a quintessential Russian formalist film. It is a montage of events that focuses on a certain characters' emotion (the woman) throughout the whole film. It is directed by Pudovkin, and it is a very typical Pudovkin film given his common themes in movies directed by him. It is pretty obvious that Pudovkin was inspired by DW Griffith; the style and structure of the films are almost identical. Both show a sequence/montage of events with the frequent use of title cards for dialogue from the characters. Pudovkin focused on emotions, which is evident because the viewer is following the emotions of the heartbroken woman. We watch her become angry (because of chess), suicidal (because of chess), and then finally happy (because she found a mutual chess hater, then fell back in love with her chess loving fiancee). It was truly an emotional rollercoaster. I did enjoy this film, mostly because it was so silly and I spent most of the time deciding which title card I wanted to use as the thumbnail for this post. The soundtrack also made it fairly enjoyable, even though it is not even close to the original soundtrack, which you can just tell by listening. It did actually fit the movie and plot line though, so it wasn't annoying. I would recommend this film to anyone who REALLY loves chess, I guess. For a short film, it was pretty amusing.
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AuthorCasey Land Archives
January 2018
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