In 1985, Rocky Balboa faced Ivan Drago in Rocky IV in the ring, symbolizing the ideological conflict between the United States and the USSR. Broadcast on Arte on Thursdays October 17 and 24 (and available for free on the Arte.tv platform), the mini-series Rematch depicts another symbolic fight, that of man against the Machine. Seen in the adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel Unwanted witness et Doctor WhoBritish actor Christian Cooke lends his features to the Soviet champion, who has since acquired Croatian nationality. Sarah Bolger (The Tudors), Tom Austen (Grantchester, The Royals), Trine Dyrholm (The Heirs, Mary & George), and Aidan Quinn (Elementary, New York, special unit) give him the answer.
Rematch : What does the new mini-series based on real events and broadcast on Arte tell?
In 1997, Helen Brock (Sarah Bolger), an employee of the IBM company, convinces world chess champion Garry Kasparov (Christian Cooke on screen), winner of the Deep Blue supercomputer in 1996, to play the return match. Behind the scenes, the multinational recruits an ultra-gifted engineer nicknamed “PC” (Orion Lee), and Paul Nelson (Tom Austen), a former player who had snatched a draw from Kasparov, to boost the computer’s performance.
Rematch : What does the new mini-series based on real events and broadcast on Arte tell?
Despite coloring, a perm and the trademark three-stripe jogging pants that Kasparov wore in archive images, the resemblance between Christian Cooke and his Soviet model of Armenian origin is not striking. But the British actor is so inhabited that the magic happens. And it is because it avoids the pitfall of mimicry that its composition is magnetic. With an economy of play, of words and his penetrating gaze, he transmits emotions. We empathize with this unfathomable genius, whose intelligence and sacrifice of a life devoted to chess command admiration. Beyond this sport, filmed with virtuosity, the emphasis is placed on psychology. The black and white checkerboard becomes the fascinating mirror of the soul of this champion.
The brilliance of this mini-series is to have treated this confrontation like a boxing match. The punchy staging places the viewer at the center of the chessboard over the course of six rounds, each developed over one episode. With each blow, we sweat with the hero, and we get totally involved in the game, feverishly waiting for the next round. This duel is all the more striking because it has current resonance, while the rise of artificial intelligence raises ethical and existential questions. There is a certain melancholy and nostalgia in this hollow portrait of Garry Kasparov, a broken icon of a changing era, and whose oh-so-symbolic defeat changed History. One of the most brilliant brains in this world brought to the ground by a machine capable of simulating the human intellect has this tragic beauty, like the shocking finale, which puts us in checkmate.
