The green stone variant

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Movie
Original title The green stone variant
Country of production FRG / GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1985
length 105 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Bernhard Wicki
script Bernhard Wicki,
Wolfgang Kohlhaase
production Lilo Pleimes,
Giselher Venzke
music Günther Fischer
camera Edward Kłosiński
cut Tanja Schmidbauer,
Gudrun Kieckheim
occupation

The Grünstein variant is the title of a feature film by director Bernhard Wicki , which is based on stories by Ludwig Turek and the radio play of the same name by Wolfgang Kohlhaase and premiered on October 13, 1984 at the Filmpodium Zurich. It had its German premiere on December 7, 1984 at the Academy of the Arts of the GDR and on February 19, 1985 at the Berlin International Film Festival . The film came on 1 November 1985 in East Germany in the cinemas, on April 2, 1986, he ran in the Federal Republic for the first time in the ARD television .

action

The film begins in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II . The three main characters meet in a remand prison in Paris : Lodek, a German seaman and enthusiastic chess player , a Greek cook who was on his way to the former German emperor in his exile in Doorn , and the Polish-Jewish butcher Grünstein, who because of a Inheritance traveled to Paris. The three men had their passports taken away under a pretext, after which they were arrested as unidentifiable persons and locked up for deportation.

They sit in their cell for several weeks, and to pass the time, Lodek scratches a chessboard on the table, forms the pieces from pieces of bread and begins to teach Grünstein how to play chess. The Pole has never played chess before, but he is proving to be a great talent. Already after a relatively short time he succeeds in checkmating Lodek with a sequence of moves he discovered with the knight . The film shows a choked mate by a knight on f2.

Lodek calls this sequence of moves the "green stone variant". He states that a chess player with the green stone variant could force a mate from the basic position, which would have made the game of chess meaningless.

One day Lodek leaves the cell. He is the only one of the three to survive the war and his life tries to remember the green stone variant that he forgot.

History of origin

The Grünstein variant is based on a radio play by Wolfgang Kohlhaase with the subtitle "A story in memory of stories told by Ludwig Turek ". Although it is a West German production, the film was made largely with support from the GDR: Kohlhaase comes from East Berlin , and most of the actors came from the GDR.

Reviews

"A three-character play between frugalem chamber drama and cord-engined Stammtisch -narrative."

- Stuttgart newspaper

"Melancholic and funny brain teaser trick"

- AZ, Munich

"The whole thing is incredibly exciting - a miracle in our noisy film scene, which is speculating with external stimuli."

- tz, Munich

“An atmospherically dense, exciting and humorous parable about the power of forgetting, practiced solidarity under extreme conditions and the search for meaning in life; excellently played, with excellent camera work and intelligent, concise dialogues. "

- film service

Awards

Bernhard Wicki received the Gold Filmband in 1985 for the best director and the Critics' Prize from the Association of Film and Television Creators in the GDR.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd A. Weil, Schach im Fernsehspiel , Schach-Report 12/89, p. 34

literature

Web links