: Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
I wanted to like this as the “chess master loses to computer” topic fascinates, but it’s one of the worst documentary’s I’ve ever seen. Things go bad from the opening, when the narrator speaks in a horrible harsh whisper that’s so faint I had to pump up the volume to hear him and even then a lot of what he said was inaudible (and oh, the film has no subtitles or closed caption support). It just gets worse from there. Throughout the film time is confused: we aren’t sure if the scenes are history or current. Some of the recent footage is dreary: scenes of Kasparov standing in a hotel room where the big match took place years earlier and remembering mundane details like “There was a table over there.” are just pointless and boring. There is some good chess info, and interviews of the IBM programming team edge on perceptive, but unfortunately Kasparov himself, despite being heavily featured throughout, remains an enigma. Apparently he beat himself in the big loss (the machine didn’t win, Kasparov lost), but the why is never revealed though that’s the core question of the film. Very strange. I came away not knowing much more than I started with, which is not a good sign for a documentary. And there are lots of irrelevant stylistic techniques the film employs to gratuitous effect, such as the overly dramatic shots of the “Turk” (a famous manniquin chess-playing machine from centuries ago), which are confusing and never enlightening. The bottom line: the film’s a muddle. You’d do better to read a good article on the topic.
Topic: [/movie] |
