Film #3 of Gustav's Recommendations

” I know now that nothing happens by chance. Every moment is measured; every step is counted.”

With a sad and heartbreaking story which addressees issues like destiny, love, dignity, pride and regret, Max Ophuls’ unappreciated little masterpiece, Letter From An Unknown Woman, is more like a story written by Leo Tolstoy, like the works of the Russian writer it takes place in dimly lit noble houses and chooses its characters from the upper-class society, it takes lonely characters and follows them across years as they go from happiness into misery and despair. What Ophuls does is that he turns his camera away from all the glamour of houses, clothes and concerts and instead focuses…

88/100

It's no surprise that these 'endless parades of arrivals and departures' that make Letter from an Unknown Woman take as much away from these characters as they give. It's these actions and the musicality of the performers' movements matched by the waltz the camera is frequently engaged in that creates Ophüls' tragic world wherein our central woman Lisa Berndle devotes her life to a man she seems destined not to be with. It's always a window or a door blocking Lisa from her love - or everything that, to her, represents her love - pertubed by her inability to reach him even through something most brittle. And finally, upon meeting, their attempt to capture missed opportunities and memories can…

The key moment of this film is the second goodbye at the train, which suddenly becomes a moment of horror for Lisa. This horror should not occur, but the non-diegesis of Daniele Amfitheatrof's score combined with the sudden look of shock registered by Fontaine's face tell us that this moment is tragedy. What has happened exactly? Her son has exclaimed as the train rushes out the station that he expects to see her in two weeks. This is of course what happened with her one time love years ago, who she then abandoned in hoping never to force any pressures on her. But as it turns out, at least in her perception of the events, her decision to leave him…

"I think everyone has two birthdays. The day of his physical birth and the beginning of his conscious life. Nothing is vivid or real in my memory, before that day..."

A birth.

Born into acute awareness and from this delivery, the unknown woman forges her path, nothing wavering, not even when ignored, dismissed, or forgotten. She believes in her new found sense of being alive so much, she says without hesitancy, “Nothing happens by chance. Every moment is measured.” And in her case, treasured. And in Stefan’s? Squandered. To tweak a line from a song, “What a life [he] might have known, but he never saw [her] there.” I should tweak it more, for he does see her, briefly. He…

Based on Stefan Zweig’s novella, LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN is Max Ophüls’ magus opus which fails to get its fair recognition upon its initial launch, but time will attest its superlative craftsmanship and stunning aesthetics.

The story itself has its beggar belief elements in its nexus prima facie, how can a man not remembering a woman who has thoroughly swept him off the feet, even just for a romantic and passionate one-night-stand? Maybe only real gadabouts can certify such occasion. But that is exactly where the story takes a leap of faith to accentuate the psychological disparity between man and woman, one is forever enticed by new possibility and ensconced in that living-for-the-moment benevolence while the other more often…

The key moment of this film is the second goodbye at the train, which suddenly becomes a moment of horror for Lisa. This horror should not occur, but the non-diegesis of Daniele Amfitheatrof's score combined with the sudden look of shock registered by Fontaine's face tell us that this moment is tragedy. What has happened exactly? Her son has exclaimed as the train rushes out the station that he expects to see her in two weeks. This is of course what happened with her one time love years ago, who she then abandoned in hoping never to force any pressures on her. But as it turns out, at least in her perception of the events, her decision to leave him…