is one of the best examples of what used to be called "the woman's picture," and an impressive showcase for the camera wizardry that distinguished Max Ophuls's direction. "Max and his tracks" would follow the characters in and out of rooms and through walls as if the cameraman had the mobility of a ghost. Joan Fontaine, an actress who seemed to make a specialty out of aggressive docility, portrays an obsessive young woman who builds her whole life around a passion for a concert pianist (Louis Jourdan) who is barely aware of her existence. The story of lifelong, unrequited love-told via a posthumous letter-in being almost absurd is more cynical than it is romantic. To paraphrase Michael Kerbel in Film Comment, Ophuls's circular structure, endless repetitions and treadmill movements express the entrapment of a woman unable to exist outside her illusions. While A Day in the Country leaves us with an exquisitely tender and bittersweet feeling, Letter from an Unknown Woman leaves us deeply saddened.