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…

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…

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…

So marvelously complex, proposing a link between spectacle and romantic delusions. It's the only of Ophuls' American films to capture the dialecticalisms of his 1950's work, yet like those prior, remain true to its narrative constructs. Lisa doesn't just live in her fantasy world, she believes it to exist in the world - her first set of outings with Stefan: candle-lit dinners, horse-drawn carriage rides, Viennese waltzes. We see this all through memory, but its Ophuls' genius to have them resemble something out of a elaborate costume drama. This dialectialism is clear once we get to the fake train ride, at the fair. But Stefan is just as much a lost soul - at least in this memory, during their…

“promise me you won't vanish.”
“i won’t be the one who vanishes.”

joan fontaine may not be the greatest actress with her often limited expressions or lack of deep characterizations, but it always amazes me how she was able to look the part of the lovestruck teenager in The Constant Nymph and this. While Fontaine had a more successful performance in The Constant Nymph, where she had a more complex role, I did warm up to Fontaine more as Letter progressed. Once we are introduced to adult Lisa, Fontaine comes off less one-note and she's especially impressive when she has to convey Lisa’s inner emotional conflict when she meets Stefan again. Anyways, i'm so glad i gave this another try…

An excellent film about obsession, disappointment, lost opportunities and depression, all wrapped up with a big costume drama bow. It tells the story of a man who just before he is running away from a duel gets a letter from someone he seems to not know. After that, the film is all told in a flashback from the perspective of the letter writer.

In the letter we have a young girl who, at that age when girls get crushes, gets a crush for her handsome pianist neighbor, and stalks him from afar. Eventually this leads to a life-long obsession punctuated by a couple of actual meetings, and a big disappointing final meeting.

The film is amazingly well done, the character…