Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

 Max Ophuls' "Letter from an Unknown Woman"

After his successes in Europe in the early 1930s, Max Ophuls spent some considerable time in America making films for Hollywood. It wasn't until 1948 that he made perhaps his most acclaimed American film, "Letter from an Unknown Woman." Although the film lost money for Universal, it has been reappraised in retrospect for its strange quality and uniqueness. 

The film stars Joan Fontaine as Lisa, a young woman living in Vienna who becomes obsessed with a pianist, Stefan, who lives in her building. He has no idea she exists but she continues to stalk him. After waiting outside his window every night, he finally notices her and take her out on a date that very night. After sleeping with her, she leaves and runs out on her the very next morning. She eventually has his child and marries another man to help take care of the child. One night, she sees him again and he doesn't remember her at all. Her son, now 10, is sent away so she can be with Stefan. However, she realizes that he doesn't care about her and that she is just another woman full of a revolving door of women. After her and her son die of typhoid, she writes him a letter explaining everything.

I found this film to be quite strange (in the best way). On top of Lisa being an obsessive stalker, she is fantastical and romantic in thought. She has grand, ideal visions of this stranger she's never met and spends many years romanticizing him in her mind. She misunderstands that the routine one night stand he had with her as some romantic moment that begs further reach. She is almost hopeless in her pursuit and adoration of this man. In the end, this romanticism runs into a cold and bitter halt. Lisa realizes that Stefan doesn't remember her and never truly cared about her in any capacity. Because of this harsh disillusionment, many critics have noted the film as being 'cynical.' Whether or not this is meant as a praise to the film, I completely agree. It's a film in which a young woman full of delusional romantic obsession spends her whole life chasing something that doesn't care about her. When she finally realizes, its all too late. Her son has died, she is dying, and her husband has lost his entire family. She created so much destruction for this fantastical pursuit. It's a rather bewildering and subtly brutal film.