Delphina Potocka was one of a number of fascinating women in Chopin’s life. His supposed letters to her‚ which surfaced in Poland after the Second World War as unverified copies‚ caused enormous controversy because of their erotic and mildly anti­Semitic content. Hounded by the authorities‚ the descendant of Potocka who sought to publicise them committed suicide‚ on the centenary of Chopin’s death. As with his film of Solomon Volkov’s Testimony‚ Tony Palmer has taken a controversial aspect of a composer’s life and used it to throw speculative light on his career. Here he tries also to dramatise the issue of Chopin’s reputation in Stalinist post­war Poland. This obviously low­budget enterprise inevitably falls between the stools of feature film and documentary. There are many creaky things in the script‚ in the acting‚ and in the fitting of music to image (involving some barbarous cuts). Not as lurid or inadvertently comic as the worst of Ken Russell‚ the end product is none the less half­baked. 20­year­old Valentina Igoshina plays sweetly and speaks unassumingly about her attitude to Chopin. The booklet is shoddily produced.