Classic Movie Review: Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

Title: Letter from an Unknown Woman
Release Date: April 28, 1948
Director: Max Ophüls
Production Company: Rampart Productions
Summary/Review:

Set in fin de siècle Vienna, this film begins with a concert pianist, Stefan Brand (Louis Jourdan), receiving a letter from a unknown woman (clever, eh?).  Oh, but he should know here because she is Lisa Berndle (Joan Fontaine) who has loved him for years.  Lisa’s voice reads the letter which doubles as the film’s narration going back to when she was a teenager and Stefan moved into a neighboring apartment.  She falls for his music and then helplessly in love with him and keeps that flame going even when her mother remarries and they move to Linz.

Years later, Lisa finally meets Stefan and they have a romantic night that results in her pregnancy.  Stefan disappears and Lisa eventually marries another man who agrees to raise her son.  When Lisa and Stefan finally meet again, he doesn’t remember her at all.  Oh, it is all so tragic.

There are things I like about this movie.  It’s beautiful filmed with the flowing camera movement that Max Ophüls would go on to use so well in Madame de…  The set design is also excellent. I really like the Vienna apartments that are all wound together and the use of snow on the ground is impressive. And I always like Fontaine as she is excellent at playing characters who are uncertain and anxious, yet determined (and also rather foolish in their selection of romantic interests).  But overall this movie is heavily melodramatic and rather boring.  I guess this story of unrequited love is just not for me.

Rating: **1/2

Classic Movie Review: The Color of Pomegranates (1969)

Title: The Color of Pomegranates
Release Date: 1969
Director: Sergei Parajanov
Production Company: Armenfilm
Summary/Review: This art film made in Soviet Armenia tells the story of a poet named Sayat-Nova.  This is not your typical biopic.  The effort is made to tell the story of a poet through visual poetry rather than conventional narrative. The film has very little dialogue and is structured as a series of tableaus.  The camera is pointed straight on at people posing and holding or manipulating objects.  A lot of these objects have symbolic significance although I don’t have the knowledge of what they mean.  It’s almost as if one is watching a series of memes from a culture you know nothing about.  Nevertheless, the film has a lot of striking imagery.  It also has a lot of horses with a strange canter, chickens, and sheep.  So many sheep.  I know the counterculture is not likely to have made inroads in Soviet Armenia in 1969 but this movie does feel awfully trippy.

Rating: I have no rational basis on which to rate this as a film