"Computer Chess" (2013)

Computer Chess is a relentlessly droll and dour film. Writer-director Andrew Bujalski tells the film at an almost clinical remove; he's detachedly observing a group of computer programmers competing in a computer chess competition in the early 1980's. But he's not really judging them. Though there's some humor to be found in their behavior, and it is a funny film, Bujalski seems more concerned with noting the peculiar daily beats and idiosyncrasies of this kind of event and these sorts of people. In deed, the film does a wonderful job of recreating the 1980's time and place its set in, keenly observing period detail. At times the film is a mockumentary with individuals filming the competition. The film is shot in grainy Sony tube vintage black and white video as if it's found footage, but it slowly becomes clear that some of what we see could not possibly have been filmed by anyone. And that's before Bujalski really starts taking liberties with the limitations of his stylistic convention.

For Computer Chess starts out in abstraction and then turns its thematic interests into weirdly cerebral realities (like the hard sci-fi these geeks are likely fond of). Whether it be connection and loneliness, or the shrinking gap between humanity and technology, or power and knowledge and their purpose, the film takes ideas to their logical (or, sometimes, illogical) extremes. A film like The Social Network had similar themes but explored them through procedural. Chess, however, is purposely misshapen. It doesn't rise to a high emotional point, but plummets stuttering to an anticlimax fitting for its isolated, frustrating introverts and outsiders.

If its ending feels like its of little consequence, that's likely because the events of the film were equally of little consequence. The chess players realize that beyond a handful of obsessive techies, no one will care much about the slow trudge of technological advancement or the potential denigrating effects it might have on humans in the long run. We see the members of the competition slowly fall victim to their own worse peccadilloes, missing opportunities or going after the wrong gains. Though they may have done plenty for the greater good of society and the scientific community, they also consistently seem to do it at unconscious, or, at least, suppressedly self-aware, personal loss and suffering.

Grade: ★★★