Romancefest 2014: Letter from an Unknown Woman

Let’s jump a couple years ahead to 1948 and back over the pond to the US for Max Ophul’s LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN.

This flick is a very interesting examination of lifelong unrequited love. It opens with a man preparing to flee early 1900s Vienna on the eve of a duel (Louis Jourdan). However, he’s interrupted when he receives the titular letter, which starts with something like, “By the time you read this I might be dead.”

The rest of the film unfolds as the letter does. Turns out, Jourdan was a promising concert pianist who lived in a building next to a young girl (Joan Fontaine) who fell in love with him at first without even seeing him, just by hearing his music. She becomes obsessed and although her family eventually moves away, she turns down an engagement due to her love of the pianist, and returns to Vienna on her own to hopefully connect with him.

Upon connecting the two share a wonderful, romantic night together before Jourdan disappears from her life again. Later, they reunite yet again, this time with painful results.

Basically, what we have here is a one-sided romance, and a very in depth look at it. We see very convincingly how Fontaine can develop a crush and fall head over heels in love with Jourdan, or the idea of Jourdan, without ever really knowing him. At the same time, we can also see how her idealized vision of him prevents her from realizing he’s a womanizer, and prevents her from realizing the afore mentioned wonderful, romantic evening is possibly just another of his one-night conquests.

For Jourdan’s part, we can also see how he wouldn’t remember her over the years. We all must have someone in our lives that we were memorable to, but who we don’t remember. Similarly, I’m sure we all have people that we remember who don’t remember us. Of course it’s much more tragic to see both sides play out in a movie like this. Jourdan seems like way more of a heel when we know how in love with him Fontaine is. It’d be bad enough if she had just met him that night, their one night together, but it’s even worse knowing she’s nursed a love for him for maybe a decade.