The Chess Players (1977) - film review

In 1856, Oudh is one of the last provinces in India that has not entirely succumbed to British control.  Owing to concessions made to the British government some years ago, it remains an independent Muslim kingdom, ruled by the popular monarch Wajid Shah.  But the situation is about to change.  The British now intend to take control of Oudh to strengthen their position in India.  General Outram is sent by the Governor General, Lord Dalhousie, to find a pretext for Wajid’s dethronement.  The Shah’s love of poetry, dance and women are interpreted by Outram as signs of a frivolous and hedonistic temperament, something which makes him unfit to be a king.  Meanwhile, unaware of these political machinations, two wealthy friends, Mirza and Mir, are fully occupied playing chess.  Mirza is so absorbed in his game that he neglects his wife.  She reacts by hiding the chess pieces, but the two friends continue playing, with nuts and vegetables.  Tired of his wife’s antagonism, Mirza persuades his friend to continue their game at his house.  This suggestion pleases Mir but not his wife, since she has been having an affair with his nephew in his absence...

In one of his more accessible films, acclaimed Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray offers an ironic take on the fall of India to the British in the 19th Century.  The Chess Players is one of Ray’s more visually striking films, its rich composition belying its subtle complexities. Like much of this director’s cinema, the film demands several viewings to fully appreciate its worth and see beyond the surface impressions.  The title is aptly chosen.  The high level political manoeuvring, which sees Queen Victoria’s representatives usurp the native king from a strategically important province, resembles a game of chess in its intricacy and display of cunning.  This connects nicely with a second story stand involving two wealthy landowners who are driven to increasingly desperate measures to continue their chess playing in peace.

In Ray’s mind, the two chess playing noblemen represent the complacent ruling class of India, who allowed the British to take control of their country.  So obsessed are these two with their game of chess that they completely lose touch with the world around them.  One fails to notice he is neglecting his wife; the other is ignorant of the fact that his wife is cuckolding him with his own nephew.  In the end, they become passive bystanders, unable to do anything but watch as the British troops turn up and take their kingdom away from them.  

The Chess Players is an atypical film for Ray in many respects.  It is one of the few films he shot in Technicolor and the only one of his films containing dialogue in Hindi and Urdu, rather than his own Bengali.  It also includes a big name British actor, Richard Attenborough, which helped to make the film a greater international hit than it might have been.  Attenborough was such an admirer of Ray’s work that he instantly agreed to waive his fee when the part was offered to him.  Whilst he found the experience of working in India in the summer extremely arduous, Attenborough gave what is widely considered one of his finest performances, as the conniving but not entirely unsympathetic General Outram.

Whilst the film is stylistically quite a radical departure from much of Ray’s previous work, it bears its author’s signature in both the sheer excellence of the mise-en-scène and the authenticity of its characterisation.   Surprisingly, given its subject, there is no bitterness in this film, just a suggestion of regret that India gave in so easily to British rule.  Indeed, Ray risks being accused of treating the subject too lightly.  A Terry Gilliam-style cartoon makes fun of Britain’s bulimic colonialism, whilst one of the two main story strands comes dangerously close to Pythonesque farce on more than one occasion.  (Actually, the sequence in which the two chess players try, unsuccessfully, to resume their game in the house of a dying acquaintance is funnier than anything the Python team ever came up with.)

The Chess Players is not only an entertaining, superbly crafted piece of cinema, it is also highly informative, giving a rare insight into a period of British and Indian history which is too easily overlooked today.   The film also has a message for today’s generation, since it offers an effective allegory on the dangers of political indifference.  Closing your eyes seldom makes the world a better place; indeed it merely makes the job of the dictator and the bandit much, much easier.  For anyone who feels daunted by Ray’s monumental reputation, there can be no better introduction to his work that this sumptuous film.

© James Travers 2010

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