Computer Chess — a new US indie milestone?

NOV 30 — One of the most common complaints about films in general is that they are often not “original.” 

Sometimes a gimmick or novelty can be mistaken for originality, because more often than not people evaluate films according to their subject matter or content and not necessarily for their method of execution or form.

High concept films will usually be raved about as original, like films by directors such as Christopher Nolan (especially for Inception and Memento) or Michel Gondry (for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Be Kind Rewind), when a closer look at the films’ form and shape will usually reveal a rather strict adherence to the formulas and structures of a particular genre like the heist thriller, puzzle film, romantic drama or comedy.

Looking at it this way, it’s almost as if it’s a case of “we just want something that feels new, but not too new or difficult please.” Never one to use the word “original” lightly, I very rarely find the excitement to use it with regards to a new film. Even when people were drooling over the extremely clever Primer, I still steered clear of using that word when describing my enthusiasm for the film.

But after watching mumblecore pioneer Andrew Bujalski’s latest film Computer Chess, which recently came out on home video in the US, I’ll have to tip my hat to what’s surely one of the most original films of the last few decades. It’s just such a weird and challenging film that it’ll probably both perplex and delight anyone watching it.

Champions of narrative will probably be wholly turned off by the fact that the film doesn’t really follow any sort of narrative formula, at all! And that’s not even what makes me (and a fair few other film fanatics across the world) want to call it original. What’s most remarkable about the film is how nimbly it reflects and resembles its subject – the artificial intelligence of computer programs designed to play chess.

Without any “hero” or “heroine”, the film is simply a kind of record of a weekend spent in a hotel somewhere in the USA in the early 1980s where there’s an annual gathering of computer programmers (aka geeks/nerds) in which each team’s computer program competes against each other in a chess tournament, culminating in the winning program getting to do battle with a human chess master.

Shot in black and white with a Sony AVC3260, which is one of the earliest analogue video cameras, the film at first seemed like a documentary of the event, patiently observing the participants and their chess games. We slowly get to know the many characters, from the superbly memorable “rebel programmer” Papageorge to the closest to the movie has to a main character, Peter, right down to a group of swingers staying at the same motel for some sort of retreat with their African guru.

Peter’s team’s program seems to willingly make losing moves when playing against other computers but suddenly starts to play when pitched against a human being, reacting to the humans’ unpredictable moves. And somewhere along this point the film morphs into something increasingly more abstract, as if it’s reacting and making its own wholly unpredictable moves, which I think cleverly reflects and resembles the artificial intelligence of the said computer program. To put it in other words, watching this film is akin to playing chess with it, which I think is brilliant and what certainly made it the oddity and original object that it is.

Viewers accustomed to the safety net of narrative formulas and rules will probably find this very frustrating, but trust me when I say that it’s worth the challenge, for in it lies a great many pleasures. Chief among these is the sheer comic eccentricity of everything. Where else but in this film can you find a character who spends most of his time trying to sleep in other people’s rooms (because there’s a mix up with his reservations), even going so far as hilariously trying to ask the only girl attending the computer chess whether he can sleep in her room, culminating with the wonderfully strange view of him walking into a hotel room filled with cats when he finally manages to get one?

And it doesn’t stop there too. What the swingers do with their African guru has to be seen to be believed (and no, it doesn’t involve any sex or nudity). In a year (no, make it a decade, if not more) of mostly safe, watered down US indie film culture, it’s genuinely exciting to see something this brave, offbeat and uncompromising make its way into our consciousness. It’s still very much an under-the-radar film, but be brave will you, and play a game with Computer Chess.

There are much worse things to do with your time than that.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.