Dangerous Moves

The world chess championship is played in Geneva. On one side is Akiva Liebskind: old, ill, a champion produced by the Soviet system. On the other is Pavius Fromm: young, defected to the West, nerves in pieces. The match starts on the board and does not stay there. Each man arrives with delegations, doctors and intelligence officers. Liebskind's wife is let out of the country, Fromm's wife arrives; these count as pressure as much as the moves do. The two men at the board are made to fight on behalf of their countries. Richard Dembo directs; a hundred minutes, with Michel Piccoli as Liebskind and Alexandre Arbat as Fromm, and Liv Ullmann and Leslie Caron in the cast. Entered by Switzerland, it won the foreign language film Oscar in 1985, the country's first.