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Mystery Of Chopin [DVD]
 
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Mystery Of Chopin [DVD]

DVD ~ Valentina Igoshina
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
Price: £14.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Customers buy this item with Impromptu [DVD] [1990] DVD ~ Judy Davis

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Price For Both: £18.96

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  • This item: Mystery Of Chopin [DVD] DVD ~ Valentina Igoshina

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Impromptu [DVD] [1990] DVD ~ Judy Davis

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Product details

  • Actors: Valentina Igoshina, Paul Rhys, Penelope Wilton
  • Format: Classical, PAL, Widescreen
  • Language English
  • Subtitles: German, French, Spanish
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: Exempt
  • Studio: ARTHAUS
  • DVD Release Date: 20 April 2001
  • Run Time: 167 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00005B0EU
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 28,928 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

Tony Palmer's The Mystery of Chopin combines two short films about the composer. In the late 1940s, a newly Communist Poland needs its national heroes to be squeaky clean: The Strange Case of Delphina Potocka documents the persecution and mysterious death of Paulina who claimed to own letters showing Chopin to be a viciously anti-Semitic egomaniac; Penelope Wilton is stunning as the dogged, and possibly deranged, Paulina and John Shrapnel, Corin Redgrave, John Bird and John Fortuneare memorable as the men who persecute her to protect Chopin's good name. These scenes are shot in a gritty black and white; colour is reserved for the dreamy and passionate scenes in which a brooding Paul Rhys moves through pastoral and revolutionary landscapes as Chopin and the inserted moments of Valentina Igoshina playing the music which is Chopin's true legacy. In the other film, Igoshina plays a selection of the standard works featured in excerpts in the film; she is a technically adroit performer, keen on the poetry of the work--but Palmer's camera is at times a little too in love with her luminous good looks.

On the DVD: The DVD has subtitles in German, French and Spanish; the sound quality is excellent--the piano recital has a particularly fine acoustic. --Roz Kaveney



Special Features

16:9 Wide Screen
English
French\German\Spanish
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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
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Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Oddly, it's a Russian who saves the day..., 8 Mar 2006
The Strange Case of Delphina Potocka is a film that shares much in common with the character Paulina, played nicely by Penelope Wilton: it has its heart in the right place, but misguidedly goes about things the wrong way. A serious lack of funding must surely explain why much of this, the main feature, is just utterly awful.

Its first drawback is that it looks like it was shot on cheap video. The black-and-white scenes DO NOT look gritty, they make you think your telly's on the blink.

There is a huge amount of what looks like stock footage used: again, presumably, to compensate for a cash shortage. By and large, the scenery elsewhere in the film looks pretty tawdry - the ballroom scenes with Rhys as Chopin are fantastic, but much of Communist Poland looks like it was shot in the east end of London on a rainy Thursday in January. Run-down and grim, yes; but the east end of London nonetheless, not Poland.

The sparse chairs and tables and antique typewriters - yes, I know that's what post-war Poland should have looked like, but you can't help but think it all looks rather like an am-dram production of Hedda Gabler.

Perhaps that's because, despite the famous names in the cast, a good deal of the acting is absolutely atrocious - check the scene where a gaggle of revolutionaries "chase" an old man down a landing. I've seen more convincing Nativity Plays, frankly. Bird and Fortune ham it up, unable to do ought else, given the terribly stilted script.

Rhys, however, IS worth his money. Long, slender fingers too - perfect for the great pianist.

It's pretty ropey, the whole thing, but somehow still quite charming. Worth a watch, at least once. And the insertion of performances (filmed far more lushly than anything else in the film) by the young Russian pianist, Valentina Igoshina, injects a pathos and beauty the film struggles to achieve elsewhere.

It is Igoshina's performance - which fills the second half of the DVD - that saves the enterprise, and warrants it a five-star rating. Not only does she interpret Chopin with an intensity and sensuality unparalled (I've seen her live in London, and prefer her preludes those of Ashkenazy and Kissin), but she also gives lively and intelligent discussion of the music in between pieces.

For this, and this alone, any lover of Chopin could do with this DVD in their collection.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Strange case indeed, 23 Jun 2008
By Trionon (London, UK) - See all my reviews
I am at a loss what the film makers were trying to achieve here as we don't learn anything about Chopin's legacy (and there are quite a few misrepresentations from what we do learn in the film) or his personality. It's disconnected, badly made and waste of good actors (Rhys, WIlton), the pianist is so-so or should I say well matched to the rest of the film....really do not bother buying or renting,I am a piano professional and it was very painful and even embarrassing to watch. If you want real Chopin buy Evgeny Kissin's piano works CDs
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars very poor, 22 Jan 2007
By SB (Canada) - See all my reviews
A very poor film supposedly about the controversial issue of Chopin's letters to Delfina Potocka. In reality the film looks more like a promo for the young Russian pianist that pops up constantly. So much for the bad feeling towards Russians - zarists and soviets alike - in the movie.
Wonder why Mr. Palmer could't find a young pretty (and better!) pianist in Warsaw. Is the Russian performer his Findelka?
In any case the film is full of inaccuracies, above all the fact they pretend the heart of Chopin was brought to Poland after WWII when in fact it was brought by his sister Ludwika shortly after the composer's death in 1849 and, following his wishes, it was placed and remain to this day in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw.
Regarding the letters to Delfina many of the ones they use in the film were NOT written to her but to other people, especially Chopin's friend Julian Fontana. The ones supposedly written to Delfina are all published in the classic Chopin biography written by Kasimir Wierzynski in 1949 at time when, according to Wierzynski, the Chopin Institute in Warsaw still accepted the letters not as forgeries as presented in the film but as authentic documents. In 1946 the owner of the letters, Paulina Czernicka, published an article titled "Chopin and the Poets" in the magazine Science and Art which included photostatic reproductions of a letter fragment. This indicates, contrary to the movie story, that the Polish Authorities had seen at least parts of the manuscript. There were other publications afterwards and by 1949 two new works about Chopin, published in Poland, contained quotes from these letters.
The rest of the film is a fragmented and somewhat incoherent mini-bio of Chopin not worth watching while you listen to the boomy recording of the Russian pianist.
In short, it is obvious Mr. Palmer did'n take the time to examine the published letters to Potocka, either in the Polish version of the 1980's nor the more recent Japanese translation available in Amazon.com
A waste of an interesting story, and of good celuloid.

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