Chopin: Desire for Love, directed by Jerzy Antczak, is a biopic of Poland’s most famous composer. The film begins in 1830, when Poland is under Russian occupation. A knock at the door summons Fryderyck Chopin (played by Piotr Adamczak) in the middle of the night to play for Duke Constantine Pawlowicz (played by Janusz Gajos), the tsar’s governor of Poland. Similar impulsive displays of the Russian convince Chopin’s father (played by Jerzy Zelnik) to send his son to Paris so that he can fulfill his destiny as a great composer. However, upon arrival Chopin discovers that publishers in Paris are unimpressed with his deeply emotional compositions, so he vows in 1831 to head for America. At a final invitation, issued by the Countess Charlotte Rothschild, (played by Anna Korcz) he achieves the recognition not only of Ferenc Lizst (played by Michal Konarski) and the patrons of her salon but also, from afar, of Georg Sand (played by Danuta Stenka). The film now becomes a minibiopic of Sand, who has cast out a husband and a lover, is unable to fulfill writing obligations, and decides that she cannot live without a romantic relationship. She focuses her amorous attention on Chopin, who instead has his heart set on the hand of a fiancée in Warsaw, but alas her father demurs, and Chopin stops waiting. Then Chopin is stricken by pneumonia. Sand (whom Chopin soon calls by her real name Aurora) takes advantage of the situation to lavish attention on Chopin, nursing him back to health. However, Aurora is walking a tightrope between carrying on a love affair with Chopin, who soon develops “galloping consumption” (a slowly developing case of tuberculosis), and caring for her two children. Salonge (played as a teenager by Bozena Stachura) eventually tries to become a rival of her mother for Chopin’s attention, but is spurned, eventually marrying Jean Baptiste Auguste Clesinger (played by Krzysztof Gosztyla), who is sculpting a bust of the novelist. Her neurotic son Maurice (played by Adam Woronowicz), however, is jealous of the fact that Chopin is having sex with his mother, evidently feeling that he will be disinherited. When Maurice forces his mother to choose between her two men, Chopin withdraws and spends the last two years of his life only with the companionship of his trusted servant. A note in 1849 summons his sweetheart from Poland, and she arrives in time to comfort him as he dies. Chopin: Desire for Love is filled with his music, doubtless persuading filmviewers that Chopin remains the foremost composer of the piano of all time. MH