"People and events don't disappoint us; our models of reality do."
Shortly after handing in the manuscript in 1942, Stefan Zweig chooses suicide together 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 Gestapo headquarters 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 SCHACHNOVELLE anno 2021 sets.
- Florian Widegger / Programme Director, Filmarchiv Austria
