Magnus

At five Magnus Carlsen memorises every municipality in Norway along with its population. At thirteen he draws with Kasparov. At twenty two he faces Viswanathan Anand in Chennai for the world championship. The documentary follows that road and puts its weight on the Chennai match. Benjamin Ree directs in his first feature documentary. What sets it apart is the archive. Carlsen's father filmed him from childhood, and because the documentary can use those home videos it has direct access to the player as a boy. There is no reconstruction. The narrative is not interested in technique. No opening variations are explained; the film is interested in how Carlsen thinks, what he does when he is bored, and the exhaustion competition leaves in a person. The Chennai section is the most tense part: Anand is playing in his own country, the hall is full, and Carlsen is the young outsider. The result is known and the edit still builds it like a sports film. Its weakness is distance. Carlsen stays closed when he speaks to camera and the documentary does not press him, so admiration ends up ahead of scrutiny. Who it is for: anyone interested in chess and in documentaries about solitary competition. Who it is not for: the playing scenes pass empty for a viewer who does not know the game, and the film never asks its subject a hard question.