Le joueur d'échecs

1939. Aboard a grand ocean liner, a stranger is about to contest an exceptional chess tournament with a world champion. But what mystery does this stranger conceal?

Here we are aboard a luxury liner. One might think that everything is calm and peaceful. Passengers relax against a backdrop of jazz after the buzz of departure, chatting about anything and everything.

On board is an eminent chess champion, Czentovic, uncouth and full of himself. He is not there to mingle with third-rate players. But a stranger, or rather an anonymous man, enters the game.

The atmosphere shifts. What drives this distinguished man to confront this machine?

The action tightens: a plunge into the Nazi universe. Violent sounds. Shouts. The deck of the ocean liner transforms into a cramped cell. Alternation between past and present. A past so present.

Adaptation by Claude Mann.