Memorable, crazy movie

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.What a very strange film. Although the title suggests the film is about a letter from an unknown woman, we spend most of the time following a woman and her love for a pianist. Is she connected to this letter? Is she the one dying in the hospital? And how is any of that related to the duel? Perhaps most strange is that although the film follows the original story very closely (from what I understand), it changes in one key instance: there is no duel in the original story, nor is there a character such as Johann. No duel? That is the big event lurking in the background of this entire story!

Max Olphus is a director who influenced many of my favourites including Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. I like his personal manifesto on filmmaking in how it's an artform that has the unique aspect of a moving camera so he uses it frequently. As such, my first Ophuls film, Letter From An Unknown Woman is beautiful for its sweeping camera-work. It's so wonderfully rich and textured that it adds such bittersweet heartache to its tragedy. It's such bliss to just let it roll over you. Unfortunately, the characters it utilises are painfully bland. The only interesting thing about them is their interest in each other, otherwise they seem too picturesque and idyllic that they're difficult to believe as authentic people. The story is efficient but not particularly remarkable, excusable if the characters were strong enough. It's the one thing letting the film down because otherwise it would've easily been one of my favourites. Hopefully other Ophuls has more interesting character work.8/10

Throughout the duration of Letter from an Unknown Woman I found myself scoffing at its characters and the situations they put themselves in, because 90% of the problems in this story are directly the fault of an impulsive, irrational action on the part of one of the main characters. By the time the film ended I was so fed up I had decided it was one of the most horrendous wastes of time I had ever subjected myself to and seemingly would walk away having learned nothing from it. But, after some reflection it began to occur to me that while I did in fact loathe the characters for their wanton displays of impulsivity and immaturity, this does not necessarily mean the film itself is to be loathed. The more I considered the film as a whole, the sum of these parts: characters, handling real-life situations, and the consequences of their actions- it became more clear that just because I found the characters to be "stupid" in a sense, doesn't make the film stupid. In fact, I found quite the opposite to be true- that the film actually serves as a tool to teach us about a certain kind of person or more generally, the moods and affections that can come upon anyone, in theory at least. It acts as a window allowing us a look into the psyche of an infatuated girl and a narcissistic young man, in addition to some of the people who get caught up in their strange affair. An original story, to some degree, prevented me from giving up on the film all together, but something seemed familiar about it and I had originally chalked up this feeling of familiarity to the fact that it was a silly romance film about a stupid girl who became obsessed and ruined her life for it. For example, she throws away a marriage to a young, well-off military officer and insults him and his father in the process because of her "love" for the musician, whom she does not even know in any real sense. To the viewer it is obvious that she is just a young girl infatuated with this brilliant musician, Stefan, a theme that has since been interpreted into various different stories, but she is convinced that what she feels for him is some exceptional thing that she will never be able to have with anyone else. Multiple scenes in this film were met with disdain on my part because of the context I was putting the film in, that context being modern romance films because I could pinpoint certain behaviors I felt were played out, tired, typical, lacking creativity, and just plain frivolous- putting literally everything aside in life just because of the supposed love one has for a person they do not even know. And the it finally occurred to me that while those things may very well be true, it is also true that at the time people may have experienced a similar relationship themselves or felt similar feelings, but this film is one of the first instances of a coherent in-depth look at such an unhealthy relationship and upon some insightful thought we can even begin to build a psychological profile for the main characters. New films may have since touched on similar things, but I realized I should not blame the film just because I found the characters actions and motivations misguided, that is precisely what makes Letter from an Unknown Woman still relevant today. The fact that I could so easily recognize what the characters were subjecting themselves to and why they did so speaks to the importance of the film because we all find ourselves in situations that we sometimes handle with emotion rather than reason and I became so angry with the characters because while the emotions are temporary, the consequences of actions cause change that can never be undone. Stefan takes responsibility for the events that transpired by the end of the film, but this was another point that infuriated me because he never asked for anything from the girl, he was a womanizer and thought she was just another girl, she developed an unhealthy obsession and now he is on his way to duel to the death over a woman he barely could remember and would not have if she had been mature enough to appreciate their romantic involvement for what it was instead of trying to force it to be something it was not and never could be in that time. It also serves to show us how far civilization has come since this time in regards to gender roles, for example, I believe that this story never would have actually happened if not for the gender roles perpetuated at the time. The girl sees her neighbor one day, hears him playing the piano, and falls "in love" with him henceforth devoting her every waking thought to him and developing an extremely unhealthy obsession. Woman at this time were expected to be good home makers and nothing more, as opposed to modern society where women are encouraged to perform in school or sports just as much as men are- so I believe if this girl had any concept of achieving something in her life or having control over what she truly wants and what she could do with her potential, she would never have become so hung up on this one gentleman. So, the most important lesson we can take from this film is that one should never let what another person is doing determine the course of your life and dictate what you do, while I maintain this girl was stupid to waste her life in a state of forlorn turmoil, I blame the society that produced her and celebrate the fact that romances like this are less common because they do nothing but damage to all parties involved.

Letter from an Unknown Woman is directed by Max Ophuls, who also co- adapts the screenplay with Howard Koch from the novella written by Stefan Zweig. It stars Joan Fontaine, Louis Jordan, Mady Christians, Art Smith and Howard Freeman. Music is by Daniele Amfitheatrof and cinematography by Franz Planer. Masterpiece, the very definition of classic cinema is right here, a film that is both beautiful and tragic, a piece of cinema that's crafted with such great skill by all involved it's hard to believe some critics turned their noses up at it back on its original release. Story is set in Vienna at the turn of the century and finds Lisa Berndle (Fontaine) as a teenager who has a crush on one of the neighbours in her apartment complex. That neighbour is concert pianist Stefan Brand (Jourdan), but Lisa will not get to know Stefan until some years later, and then only briefly, yet true love never dies does it? The scene is set right from the off, the superb set designs of period Vienna come lurching out of the screen. Jordan stands straight backed and handsome, and then Fontaine a picture of angelic beauty. Ophuls brings his euro eye for details and flair to the party, his camera work fluid, yet compact, personal but still a distant and caustic observer to the corruptible folly of romantic obsession. And Planer mists up the photogenics as Amfitheatrof drifts delicate and dramatic sounds across the unfolding drama. Narratively most of the picture is played out in the past, showing how Stefan Brand came to be reading a heart aching letter from a woman who loved and adored him. Not that he would know, such was his life of womanising and narcissistic leanings. Oh he could romance the best of them, charm a snake out of the basket, but quite frankly he's a cad, and a coward to boot. Maybe this letter from the unknown woman will shake him out of his self centred world? Give him a chance at redemption? Or maybe not... The characterisation of Lisa Berndle (Fontaine simply magnificent) is stunning in its coldness. This is a woman who for the briefest of moments in her life, derails her shot at potential happiness, and the stability afforded her son, in the belief that Stefan Brand is the destined love of her life, that love will find a way. Her foolish obsession borders on insanity, she's so driven by a self-destructive persona she can't see this is no fairytale. There is much beauty on show, but the devilish hand of fate and some tragic realisations wait for the principal players here, Ophuls brilliantly blowing a blackened cloud over the culmination of tale. Grand and opulent, heartbreaking and sad, Letter from an Unknown Woman is pure cinema, its narrative strength lies in the realisation that the vagaries of love has to be a two way thing. Brilliant film making. 10/10