Chess Story is a subtle, soft-spoken killer of a film. It’s absolutely worth your time if you like World War II-era dramas. Seek it out.
Chess Story(Schachnovelle)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Germany, Austria · 2021
1h 52m
Director Philipp Stölzl
Starring Oliver Masucci, Albrecht Schuch, Birgit Minichmayr, Andreas Lust
Genre Drama, History, Thriller, War
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1938, Vienna. Josef, an Austrian lawyer, is arrested by Nazi troops and thrown into solitary confinement. Josef is psychologically tormented for months due to his refusal to reveal confidential information to the police. To withstand the torture of his isolation, he becomes obsessed with chess.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Wall Street Journal by Kyle Smith
Chess Story is a nerve-scraping exercise in grand deception.
That’s what Chess Story is, mournful and just cryptic enough to leave you guessing what you just saw, but touched, engaged and intrigued by it, comfortable in realizing that over-explaining is not necessary and would spoil some of the fun.
Slant Magazine by William Repass
Philipp Stölzl craftily melds the genres of period drama and psychological thriller, not for the purposes of reheated nostalgia, but to shed a cold light on the recursions of historical trauma.
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