Empowerment documentaries don’t come better than this one.
Rory Kennedy’s fascinating profile of chess prodigy Judit Polgár prompts viewers to stand up and cheer. Repeatedly.
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| Judit Polgár and Garry Kasparov played each other many times, but no game was more notorious than their first match, in early 1994, at Spain's 12th annual Linares Super Tournament. |
In the hands of Kennedy and co-scripters Mark Bailey and Keven McAlester, this film is engaging, suspenseful, triumphant, emotionally shattering, and — ultimately — a testament to determination and dogged perseverance.
Along with proof that women can compete with men ... and beat them.
“They’re all weak, all women,” chess master Bobby Fischer notoriously comments, during various interviews resurrected from the early 1960s. “They’re stupid compared to men. They can’t concentrate, they don’t have stamina, and they aren’t creative.
“They should keep strictly to the home.”
Judit was born on July 23, 1976, in Budapest: youngest child in a Jewish-Hungarian family. All three girls were part of a nurture-vs.-nature experiment conducted by their father, László, who believed that “geniuses are made, not born.” A chess teacher and player himself, László and his wife, Klára, home-schooled the girls and — starting each at age 5 — spent eight to nine hours every day focused on chess.
Another reason for that choice: the Polgárs were quite poor, and chess components were cheap.
(Yes, László endured criticism for what some perceived as parental abuse.)
From the beginning, László had no interest in women’s competitions; with help from several professional Hungarian and Russian champions, he trained his daughters to be as aggressive as male players. This put him at odds with the Hungarian Chess Federation, with its strict policy of confining women to their own tournaments. Worse yet, the girls weren’t allowed to leave the Eastern Bloc countries.
At one point, László and Klára genuinely feared that they might be arrested, and separated from their daughters.
Susan — 5-1/2 years older than Sofia, and 7 years older than Judit — was the first to achieve chess prominence. But Judit caught on quickly, and entered her first tournament at age 6. The modest grand prize was a little magnetic chess set.
“I really wanted that chess set,” her older self recalls, with a laugh.
(Did she win it? I won’t tell...)
Finally recognizing that the girls’ rapidly rising fame would be good PR for Hungary, the family was allowed to enter 1988’s 28th Chess Olympiad, held November 12-30 in Thessaloniki, Greece. Players from more than 100 countries participated, but the International Chess Federation restricted the three girls to the women’s section.
At that point in time, the Soviet team — both men and women — had dominated chess for 30 years. They were believed unstoppable.
The women’s Hungarian team comprised the Polgár sisters and Ildikó Mádl. They took the championship from the Soviet team for the very first time. Judit, then 12 years old, didn’t lose any games. Her final score of 12-1/2—1/2 (representing one tie) earned her the individual gold medal.
Watching her play is breathtaking and humbling: this little wisp of an adolescent, her face still bearing traces of baby fat, appears quiet and modest, but displays a level of focus that’s 15 on a 10-point scale.
“You have to be prepared to make a bad move,” her older self explains, “but then calm down and come back.”
It’s refreshing to see, during the film’s contemporary interviews with Judit and her sisters, that all three women seem happy, self-assured and well-rounded. They definitely weren’t “damaged” by their father’s strict approach.
Later recalling his own defeat at Judit’s hands, while she still was a child, British grandmaster David Norwood remembered her as “this cute little auburn-haired monster who crushed you.”
Three months later, Judit’s statistical “Elo Rating” was 2555, making her No. 55 in the world rankings, the world’s top woman player, and 45 points ahead of her sister Susan. In the six months since the previous rankings, she had gained an astonishing 190 ratings points.
Her next goal came in December 1991, during the Hungarian National Championship. She was 15 years and four months old; if she won the championship, she’d become the youngest-ever grandmaster, beating Bobby Fischer’s previous record by one month.
It all came down to the final game, where the “safe” decision would be to play for a draw ... but that wouldn’t make her the tournament winner.
(What does she do? I won’t tell...)
By now, Judit was routinely defeating male champions, at a time when Kasparov was the chess world’s Great White Whale. He initially couldn’t be bothered to play her, insisting — in a February 1990 Sports Illustrated profile about Judit — that “She has fantastic chess talent, but she is, after all, a woman. It all comes down to the imperfections of the feminine psyche. No woman can sustain a prolonged battle.”
Kasparov consistently comes off as an arrogant horse’s ass, both during archival footage and the contemporary interviews he gave for this film.
They finally face each other in early 1994, when Judit is 17, at Spain’s 12th annual Linares Super Tournament. (“The Wimbledon of chess,” her older self explains.) The footage, courtesy of the Spanish television company PVS, is breathtaking.
The game has become notorious, for entirely unexpected reasons.
This is but the first time Judit faces Kasparov in tournament play.
“You have to believe you can take down your idol,” Judit insists.
Easier said than done...
At this point, Kennedy’s film is nowhere near its conclusion. The ongoing details of Judit’s saga become increasingly amazing, although — unexpectedly — the happiest moment arrives when she meets and falls in love with Hungarian veterinary surgeon Gusztáv Font.
Kennedy’s thoroughly captivating film makes a good companion piece to 2016’s Queen of Katwe. Both are potent reminders than men dismiss the “fair sex” at their own peril.
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