20/04/2009 11:39
Another Side to the Grand Master: Me & Bobby Fischer
Review by Alana Odegard, photo courtesy of Green Light Films.
The premier of the Icelandic documentary Me & Bobby Fischer marked the beginning of this year’s Bíódagar (Movie Days) film festival organized by Green Light Films (an Icelandic film distributor dedicated to bringing independent films from all over the world to audiences in Iceland).
Director Fridrik Gudmundsson was on hand to introduce the film to a theatre packed full of people who, like me, were curious to learn more about chess champion Bobby Fischer as well as Iceland’s strange and unexpected link to the man known both for his unparalleled talents in the game of chess as well as his reclusive and paranoid behavior that he exhibited during the later part of his life.
It is through the experiences of the incredibly charismatic, easy going and eternally optimistic Saemi Pálsson that the Me & Bobby Fischer story is told.
When Bobby Fischer came to Reykjavík to compete against Russian Borris Spassky at the 1972 World Chess Championship, Saemi, a former Icelandic policeman, was assigned as Fischer’s bodyguard.
Fischer and Saemi got along well in Iceland, so much so that Fischer retained Saemi’s bodyguard services after winning the tournament in Reykjavík. The pair traveled back to the United States but Saemi’s stay in the US was short lived.
As Saemi talks about his past with Fischer, footage of what appears to be Soviet bomber planes appears in the film and highlights the Cold War tensions that would have existed at the time of the 1972 tournament.
These Cold War tensions only added to Fischer’s increasingly paranoid behavior. After only six months in the US, Fischer’s delusions and deep-seated fears of nuclear attack and government surveillance became too much and Saemi returned to Iceland.
Fast forward to the year 2004 and Saemi receives an unexpected phone call from a distraught Fischer who is being held in a Japanese detention center for illegal immigrants.
Fischer had been sent to the jail after being arrested at an airport while attempting to travel to the Philippines with a revoked passport. Although they had not had any contact in over 20 years, Saemi decides to try and help his old friend.
Here is the full review.
Where can we see this?