Bobby Fischer Against the World

"I don't believe in psychology, I believe in good moves." These were the words of 29-year-old chess master Bobby Fischer back in the summer of 1972, shortly before the nerve-racking battle for the world championship against defending champion Boris Spassky. But there was more at stake than just the championship. The duel was a microcosmic version of the Cold War: the United States up against the Soviet chess superpower. This biographical documentary pays particular attention to that legendary duel in Reykjavik. Recent interviews with people who were there and in the know - from Henry Kissinger to Garry Kasparov - support the portrait of a complicated child prodigy who grew into a national hero, only to descend into infamy. The match in Iceland, which Fischer won, turned out to be the high point of his career - everything went downhill from there. Because Fischer refused to defend his title, he had to surrender it three years later. The media-shy genius became an enigma, and his obsessive behavior, though not unusual among chess masters, grew increasingly eccentric and even malicious. When Fischer played a rematch against Spassky for cash in Yugoslavia in 1992, defying an international boycott, his American citizenship was revoked. He obtained political asylum in Iceland in 2006, and died there two years later.