Chopin: Desire For Love
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Movie Reviews of Chopin: Desire For Love
Movie Review: A gorgeous looking movie about a musical genius...
Summary: 4 Stars
There's no doubt that in Chopin: Desire for Love, Polish Director Jerzy Antczak has made an imminently watchable film and the important events in Frederic Chopin's life are well dramatized, but all too often the movie trips up, becoming bogged down in whispery, arty pretensions, when it doesn't really need to be. The movie is gorgeous to look at, however, and a selection of Chopin's music is brilliantly used throughout with great performances from Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and other noted classical artists.
The story primarily revolves around Frederic Chopin's (Piotr Adamczyk) affair with the wealthy feminist scribe Aurore Dupin (Danuta Stenka), AKA George Sand. It's a rather significant time period in Chopin's life where he began to write some of his best work. We first meet Chopin as he is leaving his leaving his family in Warsaw and on his way to France in search of artistic enlightenment and public exposure. But upon his arrival in Paris he's meet with a cholera epidemic and finds that no one is particularly interested in his music anyway.
After threatening to leave for America, he meets George Sand who gets Franz List (Michal Konarski) to play Chopin's music at a recital one night. He's meet with a standing ovation and the stage is set for musical fame and also entry into Sand's group of prestigious group of musicians, artists and intellectuals. But Chopin's relationship with Sand is soon fraught with difficulties; artistic egos begin to clash and petty jealousies abound. Their affection for one another is often tempered by Chopin's arrogance and Dupin's unwillingness to compromise.
The movie does a good job of trying to tell the story without being too documentary-like and shows a side of Chopin not often recognized by music lovers, especially the trouble he caused to both his kindly family, and ultimately to the devoted Sand. He was a talented man who was a slave to his own passion and brilliance, and the impetuous and headstrong Sand was constantly caught between trying to fulfill the composer's needs and also attend to the needs of her demanding children.
Much of the dramatic impetus of the story ensues when Sand's artist son Maurice (Adam Woronowicz) becomes jealous of his mother's love for Chopin, and as Sand's daughter Solange (Bozena Stachura) comes of age, she also confesses undying love for the composer much to the chagrin and mortification of her mother. Eventually, the sickly Chopin comes down with tuberculosis and when the four of them leave Paris for the dryer weather of Italy, personalities and egos begin to clash.
The acting is generally good. But the problem isn't really even Adamczyk's performance but the fact that we're far more interested in Stenka as Sand and her offspring. This is probably because the Sand family is portrayed as reckless and intractable instead of dour and mannish. Stenka gives a powerful performance as Sand and she really makes the viewer believe that she is caught between the love of a composer whom she knows is gifted, loves, and wants to support, and the attention that she must shower upon her two temperamental and volatile children.
Ultimately we don't learn that much about Chopin the man as the film dutifully ticks off important events in his life while preferring to concentrate more on George Sand's socially rebellious nature (throughout much of the movie she wears tailored men's pants and smokes thin cigars).
The production design is generally well done, with the costumes and period detail of the mid- 19th century beautifully captured. The movie, however, is mostly worth watching for the magnificent score, which so brilliantly captures many of Chopin's greatest nocturnes and waltzes - the highs and lows of a great and grand musical genius. Mike Leonard May 05.
Movie Review: Gorgeous
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is "different" in that the attention is not just on the complications of the affair with George Sand but the challenges of fitting into her household. Unlike previous films and other biographies, this one is less expansive but somehow unusually personal, leaving one wondering if one actually really knew all that much about the private life of Chopin. The costuming is lovely but the characters are not given as much context as in other biographies. For those who love Chopin and his music, this film challenges one to look deeper into the man while simultaneously indulging in wonderful performances of his music.
Not having read all the comments by other reviewers, it might be worth noting that what does seem faithful in what the producers did choose to portray is the refinement.
If the film had instead been called "A Chapter in the Life of George Sand," it would also have been fair because there is a tremendous focus on her juggling act between children and lover(s). If the depictions are historically correct, the film gives us a glimpse of the private persons whose public lives were so much better known.
The film has entertainment value and is visually gorgeous. The acoustics were a bit more maddening as the music seems much louder than the voices and twiddling with speakers and balance and settings did not help all that much.
I do not regret buying this and will surely watch it again and eventually pass it along to someone else.
Movie Review: Good for snuggling on the sofa
Summary: 4 Stars
If it fascinates you to learn more of the life of those whose music has surrounded generations of listeners, there are movies that satisfy this need. The original movie on Tchaikovsky (there are 2, the best is Russian w/English subtitles), this movie, and, of course, Amadeus (Mozart) are the finest of the genre that I've discovered. Enjoy a beautiful movie and beautiful music and hopefully, a beautiful evening.Movie Review: Translation?
Summary: 4 Stars
Everything is all right, except for the subtitles in spanish. The translation seems to be the worst work of an ignorant: Chopan for Chopin, Nolán for Nohant, Georgina for George, Lits for Liszt and so on. It was anoying, disgusting and upsetting.Movie Review: Obviously flawed, but entirely watchable
Summary: 3 Stars
This is one of the two or three movies made that portrays Frederick Chopin - whose music enthralls the senses and whose personality is of easy prey to theatrical play.
The reviews presented here have brought out the most obvious flaws of the movie which I need not discuss further, though I would have to commend the rather admirable acting undertaken by the leading actor and actress.
That Chopin was described as a selfish boor here I must quite agree, and the film certainly reiterates the stereotype of Chopin as a narcissistic, withdrawn, idiosyncratic and insufferable man, in spite of the ethereal qualities of his music. Rather than bridging these seemingly irreconciliable aspects, the film sought to present them "as they are".
The quality of the image leaves much to be desired - despite being a rather recent production, the clarity of the image is inferior to say, Impromptu, shot more than 10 years earlier.
Speaking of which I would like to say, Impromptu has a wholesome lot more of entertainment than what the dry satire of Desire for Love, intended or otherwise, could have afford. Impromptu's comical approach, though perhaps historically less accurate is clearly more successful than Desire for Love's quasi-epic and biographical attempt.
The reason for awarding three stars is the rather disjointed sequences and dialogues that do not seem to leave the film with any clear sense of direction, making it appear to be rather stiff, stifled and lengthy.
The amusing segments that adversely up-ed the viewing pleasure, though in a slightly "perversed" manner, had to be the farce-inducing, heated argument over the chicken parts (which may very well be a real issue for heated debate despite its ludicrousness) as well as the older Solange's irritatingly obsessive behavior, somewhat of a miscast for an actress who seems obviously too old for the role and unfortunately does not possess the physical features that endears the audience to her plight.