The Polgar’s Variant 2014
Distributed by Ruth Diskin Films Ltd., P.O.Box 7153, Jerusalem, 91071, ISRAEL
Produced by Ayelet Kait and Amir Harel si A
Directed by Yossi Aviram
DVD , color, 70 min.
College - General Adult
Chess, Education, Sociology, Cold War, Documentary, Biography
Date Entered: 10/28/2016
Reviewed by Susan J. Martin, Head, Acquisitions Services University of ChicagoDirector Yossi Aviram captures the amazing story of three chess wunderkinds: Zsuzsa (Susan), Sofi, and Judit Polgar in his documentary, The Polgar’s Variant. The Polgar sisters, raised in communist Hungary and home educated by their father, Laszlo Polgar, rose to the highest ranks of competitive international chess.
The basic framework for the film is the experimental upbringing, education, and lives of Susan, Sofi, and Judit Polgar. Their childhood, an experiment set up to explore and prove their father, Laszlo Polgar’s educational theory that geniuses are made not born, and that with the proper education and training anyone could achieve genius level for a specific subject. For his daughters, Laszlo selected chess which would completely encompass their day. In addition to chess, the sisters studied multiple foreign languages and high-level math, but the primary focus was always chess. Aviram covers the sisters’ entire life from childhood to present by using interview historical and present-day footage of parents Laszlo and Klara, former chess tutors, fellow competitors, and, of course, the sisters themselves.
While keeping this biographical framework, Aviram peels back and exposes a multitude of layers which make the Polgar sisters' story even more remarkable: the effects of the Holocaust and continuing anti-semitism on the family; governmental persecution due to their educational choices, as well as competition limitations based on gender, imposed by both the Hungarian government and the international chess community, and the personal life choices of the sisters. Each of these layers are worthy of a film unto themselves. However, Aviram provides just enough information for further thought and discussion, but not so much that the viewer loses the film’s narrative focus.
Film captures what narrative could not, and one cannot help but be swept away by the smiles and triumphs of the girls. Amongst all the discussion of trial and error, cause and effect, experiments and long suffering, Susan, Sofi, and Judit emerge not as “results” but as life forces of their own, grateful for their upbringing and determined to choose their own fate.
The Polgar’s Variant is recommended for college through general adult audiences, and would work well as a discussion tool for courses or programs focusing on education, Cold War history, chess, and sociology.