Me & Bobby Fischer

A documentary about Bobby Fischer‘s last years as his old friend Saemundur Palsson gets him out of jail in Japan and helps him settle in Iceland. A ringing telephone awakes Sæmi in the middle of the night. He receives emergency call from an old friend, Bobby Fischer, who called “collect” from a public phone in prison in Japan. Sæmundur did not hesitate one moment – this man must be rescued. It does not matter if he has not met his friend for three decades and only heard his voice over phone just few times all this time. His friend was in trouble and Sæmi is a friend indeed.

Bobby Fischer became world champion in chess in Reykjavík in 1972, the first of which Americans had and thereby defeating the virtually indestructible Soviet chess machine that was dominating the chess sport.. The Cold War was at it´s peak and Bobby became national hero in the United States. The same year Sæmi and Bobby became friends in Reykjvík. In this documentary viewers get to know Sæmi rock´s struggle for the liberation of Bobby from prison in Japan and how he managed to provide his friend Icelandic citizenship. In the movie are individual interviews with Bobby Fischer after he settled in Iceland.

I recently watched this Me & Bobby Fischer film by Fridrik Gudmundsson. Even though I knew Bobby well, there were plenty of things I did not know until I watched this video, especially the last few years of his life. There are many never seen before footage. It is a fascinating movie, especially if you are a Bobby Fischer fan. From the scale of 1-5, I give it a solid 4.