After the series “The Queen's Gambit”, Netflix released a movie about the real “queen” of chess
Garry Kasparov and Judit Polgar, photographed during one of their famous chess games, PHOTO: Entertainment Pictures / Alamy / Profimedia Images
The documentary “Queen of Chess” can be seen from Friday, February 6, on Netflix. It tells the Hollywood-worthy story of chess grandmaster Judit Polgár.
“In 1989, before Searching for Bobby Fischer and The Queen's Gambita 12-year-old Hungarian prodigy named Judit Polgár embarked on a David-against-Goliath mission to become the best chess player of her generation – which meant confronting men who believed that women – let alone little girls her age – could never be truly exceptional at chess,” is the official description for the documentary published on Tudum, the news site of Netflix.
It tells the true story of young Polgár, who had made it her goal to defeat Garry Kasparov, the then world number one and considered by some to be the greatest chess player of all time.
“What ensued was a 13-year saga of thrilling victories, capricious opponents, dramatic confrontations and surprising friendships as Judit marched determinedly towards her goal,” the official description concludes.
The documentary film brings back the famous chess games between Polgár and Kasparov
The Queen of Chess tells these stories, tracing Polgár's life chronologically and showing how her chess victories intertwined with geopolitical changes and prejudices against women. “But chess is a battle of the mind,” points out at one point in the documentary Judit Polgár.
At 12, she would become the number 1 player in the world in the women's ranking. At 15, he would break Bobby Fischer's record, becoming the youngest grandmaster in history.
The New York Times notes that of particular interest is the series of matches, held over decades, with Kasparov, interviewed at length in the film. Their first confrontation, a controversial one – in which Kasparov was caught on camera doing something completely forbidden, a move he says to this day he was unaware of – is one of the film's most thrilling moments.
“The way she played chess was not compatible with the best strategy to face Garry Kasparov,” the Russian grandmaster recounts at one point in the documentary.
Netflix's “Queen of Chess” is directed by an Oscar-nominated filmmaker
“Queen of Chess” premiered on Netflix on Friday after premiering a few days ago at the Sundance Film Festival, and is directed by Rory Kennedy, an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker and producer (for Last Days in Vietnam) and Emmy Award winner (Ghosts of Abu Ghraib).
“We live in a time when so many people are still fighting for equal opportunities – Judit's life shows what can happen when one person is determined to break down barriers,” Kennedy said at the Sundance Film Festival. “Through this film, my team and I hope to give Judit Polgár, the greatest chess player in history, the visibility her revolutionary journey deserves,” she added.
Even the NYT notes that while chess has been the basis of many movies and TV series, it remains difficult to make it truly engaging on screen, as Netflix managed with its 2020 series “The Queen's Gambit.” As Polgár notes, even the spectators at her tense and highly publicized first game against Kasparov got bored and started to leave the room. It involves a lot of standing still and staring, and if you don't know the rules very well, it's not always clear what you're seeing.
“What 'Queen of Chess' shows is that if you want to make something like chess interesting on screen, you have to remember that a game is more than the game itself,” notes the NYT in its review.
“Polgár is an exceptional player, but the story of how she got there, how she stayed at the top, and how she continued to get better is closely tied to what was happening in the world beyond the chessboard. By choosing to interweave the competition with the larger story, the game itself becomes more interesting,” she concludes.
