The film’s long-overdue release ultimately turns an important lens on politics, apathy, and complicity in our own time.Ī notary to the wealthiest families in Austria, Bartok refuses to recognize that his charmed life is disintegrating before his eyes. Published posthumously in 1943, Chess Story is a gripping meditation on the psychological torture of isolation ironically, the film’s stateside release was delayed by COVID-19. This is the scene laid out in Chess Story, Philipp Stölzl’s 2021 film adaptation of Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig’s last novella.
Before the night is over, Bartok is arrested and imprisoned in the luxurious Hotel Metropole, which was confiscated by the Nazis and turned into the largest Gestapo headquarters outside of Berlin.
Hours later, the Austrian prime minister resigns, and the Nazis march into Vienna unopposed as part of the Anschluss, the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria. When a friend pulls him aside to warn him of the advancing Nazis, the alternately charming and obnoxious Bartok dismisses him with a joke and returns to the dance floor. Josef Bartok during a stately ball at the Vienna Opera House in March 1938. Adapted with opulent attention to period detail by filmmaker and opera director Philipp Stölzl, CHESS STORY brings Stefan Zweig's stirring final novella to life.“AS LONG AS Vienna keeps dancing, the world can’t end,” quips Dr. But recounting his story to his fellow travelers, it's clear that his encounters with both the Gestapo and with the royal game itself have not stopped haunting him. As the action flashes forward to a transatlantic crossing on which he is a passenger, it seems as though Bartok has finally found freedom. To withstand the torture of isolation, Bartok disappears into the world of chess, maintaining his sanity only by memorizing every move. Just as his mind is beginning to crack, Bartok happens upon a book of famous chess games. Refusing to cooperate, Bartok is locked in solitary confinement. As a former notary to the deposed Austrian aristocracy, he is told to help the local Gestapo leader gain access to their private bank accounts in order to fund the Nazi regime. Josef Bartok (Oliver Masucci) is preparing to flee to America with his wife Anna when he is arrested by the Gestapo. Vienna, 1938: Austria is occupied by the Nazis.
0 kommentar(er)
