17.07.2019

Luc Besson’ Anna: an action thriller about a Russian beauty assassin and chess player

Our colleagues from the chess-news website discuss a new film Anna directed by Luc Besson. We, of course, could not ignore it: after all, the film is to certain extend about chess. So let’s will watch it.

Another creation of Luc Besson. Action thriller with elements of a detective story, action, drama and comedy. But we doubt that the film makers may consider it comedy.

 Dashing plot, dizzying action.

Perhaps, only Monica Bellucci could be compared with our Russian top model Sasha Luss playing the role of Anna. Moscow in the ninetieth: bright, decorated, almost how it is today. Kuznetsky Most Street is a pedestrian street with a Coffee House and a tricolour flag hanging opposite.

The first frame of the film is a close-up of the monument to Charles de Gaulle opened in 2005. Actors’ mobile phones are made in the noughties. Plates on the houses and doors are all from the modern Russia.
Three years earlier (1987): a simple girl lost in life is looking for a job using her laptop. There are a modern refrigerator and microwave in the kitchen. Car numbers are three-digit. The only plausible episode: there actually was sex in the USSR. The film budget is 30 million dollars.
Lovers of music of the late eighties would be happy: Technotronic Pump Up The Jam (here the editors did not let us down, 1990 was the peak of popularity of the song), INXS Need You Tonight.
Chess is a common thread in the film. The heroine is what she is only because she plays chess well. Performing a key task, she did an excellent checkmate.
- You may choose the wrong move, but it’s much worse to regret that you didn’t try to choose at all.
- Lenin?
- Kasparov.
Besides Kasparov, the heroine quoted Chekhov and that was why she was taken to serve in the KGB...

Evgeny Surov