Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine Director: Vikram Jayanti Country: Canada Year: 2003

SCREENING TIMES
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For the international chess community, it was the stuff of Greek tragedy – possibly even a blow against humanity. Garry Kasparov, arguably the greatest chess player the ancient game has seen, was defeated by IBM’s computer, Deep Blue. “It’s about the supremacy of human beings over machines in purely intellectual fields. It’s about defending human superiority in an area that defines human beings,” Kasparov had said prior to the 1997 match. He did not take the loss lightly.

There is a conspiratorial tone to Vikram Jayanti’s probing new film, with its tracking shots that stalk through dark corridors, hushed narration and seditious score. And there is Kasparov, still fiercely bitter about the outcome as he “reconstructs the scene of the crime,” his second match against Deep Blue. His first encounter with the supercomputer had taken place in 1996, a year earlier. This was an important, symbolic event in which Kasparov participated with a spirit of camaraderie, experimentation and amused self-confidence. It was, he admitted, a tough match, but Kasparov won. “Machines are stupid by nature,” the grandmaster shrugged.

The man-versus-machine chess challenge has a long history, going as far back as the mid-eighteenth century when a chess-playing automaton, nicknamed The Turk, toured Europe and frequently defeated its human opponents. In 1836, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a widely-read essay exposing the ruse; inside the cabinet, it turns out, was a chess expert. The development of computer chess began in the forties and by the time of its 1997 rematch with Kasparov, Deep Blue was capable of calculating two hundred million positions a second. It was the nuances of human intelligence against computational brute force.

Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine offers an incisive overview of the most notorious chess match ever played, an ultimately unfriendly contest that devolved into psychological warfare, paranoia, accusations and defences. “I’m a human being. When I see something that is well beyond my understanding, I’m afraid,” said a dispirited Kasparov.

And Deep Blue? IBM’s stock rose fifteen per cent the day following the match.

– Sean Farnel

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