The Royal Game

Germany, Austria | 2021 | Colour | 112 mins
In German with English and Chinese subtitles 
 
Genre: Drama
Director: Philipp Stölzl
Screenplay: Eldar Grigorian
Cast: Oliver Masucci, Albrecht Schuch, Birgit Minichmayr

Shortly after handing in the manuscript of The Royal Game in 1942, Stefan Zweig chooses a double suicide with his wife. This last work is also his most famous: a swan song to the values of the once proud European culture. The remake now focuses on the story of Dr B and his time in solitary confinement at a Gestapo headquarter in Vienna. There, by chance, he comes across a chess book and learns entire games by heart. Unlike earlier film adaptations, Stölzl adheres less meticulously to the original: the depiction of the physical and mental collapse of an elite class that believes it is immune from the mob until the very end is just one of the new accents that this new film sets.