User reviews

well, many of the people above me wrote that the movie was bad, but I actually really enjoyed it. I watched it in the Jerusalem Film Festival, and to be honest, one of the best movies I have seen. why? first of all, the cinematography is amazing. they have in most of the shots beautiful views, and interesting ways to film. second of all, the sound was VERY well made, and basically, those are the two main factors that make this movie a good movie. I think that you have MAX 100-200 words in the whole movie, and it is more of an artistic film, without really a very complex story to tell...

I enjoyed it a lot, and I recommend it to Cinema lovers, because of its complex and interesting ways of film, and the wonderful soundtrack. if you are going to just "watch a movie"don't go because you will get bored.

Gone with the Wind. When Harry Met Sally. The English Patient. While these are all great love stories, I have to ask: is ANYONE's life really like that? Here we have a film that's just as cinematically powerful, and yet it tells a love story which most of us have probably experienced. Plain & simple, this is the story of a missed encounter revisited years later. Based on director José Luis Guerín's real life experience, this is the story of an artist who meets a girl and, years later, returns to the city where they met. He has only a handful of clues as to who she is or where she may be: a cocktail napkin with a map drawn on it, a box of matches, and a vague recollection of what she looked like.

What follows is a very poetic 80 minutes of people-watching. He sees girls who look like her but he's not sure, so he scrutinizes them from a distance, draws them, on occasion follows them or tries to strike up a conversation. Wow, that sounds sorta creepy. But it's not. That's largely due to the lead actor's innocent boyish looks--the kind where he could stare at you for 10 minutes and you never feel threatened. He is purely an observer, and for anyone who has always wanted to indulge in people-watching but never dared for fear of being arrested, "In the City of Sylvia" is a real treat.

One thing to bear in mind is that this is a very motionless story. I mean that literally as well as figuratively. Camera shots are very still and lingering while the plot is equally slow. So if you're looking for a typical Hollywood love story you shouldn't even bother with this. But if the phrase "a picture is worth 1,000 words" means anything to you, then this is worth checking out.

Like I said in the beginning, this is a love story we've all been through, whether literally or in our whimsical reveries. All of us have that certain stranger burned into our brain from years ago: someone at a bus stop, the person you sat behind in junior high, the checkout person at a grocery store whom you had a momentary soul connection with. Wouldn't it be interesting to try to find them years later? Or is it best left idealized in our nostalgic memory? One way or another, it's this sort of mysterious longing that embodies the essence of romance. I'm grateful to director José Luis Guerín for showing us the beauty in it.

It is about time that we stop using the term "voyeur" to describe every film where the audience is given an opportunity to gaze at women. There is so much else in addition to the gazing, observing, and following. What the film captures is the harmony between the observer and the environment: a total immersion in its atmosphere. In an era where portable audio devices eliminate people's attention to their surroundings, the film almost feels like a timely persuasion: watch what you see, and listen to what you hear. Remember the essence of cinema: sound, images, and movements. The film also bears a sign of timelessness through its universal theme: a romantic's pursuit of his dreams in la vie quotidienne. As an ostensibly subjective film, it also includes many mysterious scenes where the identify of the observer is ambiguous. Some people think that those scenes come from the imagination of our protagonist - or could it be the filmmaker, or the viewer? This movie is nothing less than a timely and timeless masterpiece. It provides compelling evidence that cinema is far from dying; as a matter of fact, it has hardly been as exciting and alive.

This film is simply a disgrace. It looks like it's been shot by an art student fascinated by women to the point that he thinks the viewer can actually SHARE his fascination because he relentlessly points his camera to these women. Ha ha ! No it doesn't work like that !!!

Everything in this film is just plain fake, like the way extras are being used : one of every race, one of every color, one of every nationality, one of every age... to make a point about Strasbourg being the epitome of the modern pan-cultural city. Every time I saw (and I had TIME to look at them) an extra crossing the screen, I could only but imagine the first assistant director saying, behind the camera : "Old lady with bags, go now ! Crippled Indian flower seller, walk faster ! Pretty brunette with the black skirt, look more dreamy !" All the "good" intentions of the director (seeing people through windows, or reflected on tramways, so as to show the distance between the main character and the people that surround him) are so underlined, so obvious, so pathetically childish that the whole film slowly becomes an obvious piece of I'm-so-arty-I-could-die piece of dung. Then of course, you show this film to someone who's used to blockbusters, he'll walk into another dimension right away. Like "What ? This can be cinema too ?" Happy may be the innocent. But for an art film lover like me, this is precisely the sort of "artsy trap movie" I'm certainly not gonna fall into. Oh and by the way mister Guerin, flower sellers don't roam the streets IN THE MORNING (as a matter of fact, restaurants are closed) Whatever anyway.

Almost wordless and plot less, more of an observational documentary rather than a conventional narrative Jose Luis Guerin's "In the City of Sylvia" is certainly not like other films. How much you respond to it depends on how much pleasure you get from simply watching people rather than interacting with them. There's a central character, a handsome young man who sits and watches, looking we discover for the elusive Sylvia, finally settling on one particular girl whom he follows around the nameless city before finally confronting her.

It's a creepy scenario, if it's a scenario at all. Are his motives romantic or menacing? Hardly menacing you might think, given the almost lackadaisical style employed by Guerin. There are other characters on the periphery but they are not on screen long enough to concern us. Visually, it's very attractive. Our handsome hero does like to look at beautiful young women and sketch them. The unattractive don't really figure. Since nothing actually happens you may find that, even at less than 90 minutes, this is something of a long haul. This is the kind of art-house cinema perhaps best viewed in a gallery and dipped in and out of; never quite boring but hardly involving either.

This film made me feel like I had just undertaken a short vacation to a European city and returned. I basked in the splendour of visuals, sound and delightful observations of the city, its sounds and its people, particularly the young women, going about doing their thing. It made me smile, laugh and delighted me to simply observe.

I sincerely believe that it is extremely difficult for directors to make a good mood piece which keeps the viewer interested and does not lull him/her to sleep. Very few directors have this ability and I was thrilled to have experienced the keen sense of observation of the director of this film. I think I can actually count the total number of dialogues on my fingertips. There is a story in the background, but it is really not important to this film.

So before watching this, remember that you will be observing a piece of art in motion and not a movie with a particular story. This is how I believe cinema was supposed to be when it first was invented over a 120 years ago - as a medium of art in motion, and not for storytelling as it has been diluted to over the past century.

So, brilliant job, director, for you have realised the true meaning of cinema and have delivered us an excellent piece for the years to come. I sincerely hope I see more work from you heading into this direction in the future.

Film as art, without a doubt. But I did not find it at all inaccessible or pretentious. Its in fact a warmly human film, not at all aloof, but a celebratory and generous hearted piece which meditates on themes like desire, beauty and the silent interaction of society. It achieves this through truly wonderful use of natural light and ambient street sounds whilst the film is framed and sequenced in a thoughtful, dedicated way. And the unobtrusive cast underplay to let the director's vision shine.

It will not be to everyone's taste but I was hypnotized by this film, and deeply impressed by the purity of the film-makers' achievements here. Difficult to judge in terms of what has gone before, so I hope this film will establish a reputation as a stand-alone piece or even a ground-breaker in the coming years. Though unique in my experience, it also seems a natural next step in European cinema's long history of meandering, loosely-plotted films that are about atmosphere and everyday emotions rather than life-changing events.

It is one of the most written about and blogged about films of the last few years.References abound,from Bresson to Hitchcock,Rohmer,Murnau,even Dante and Petrarch,but is it too slender to sustain such a formidable weight of cultural allusions? While it is undoubtedly true that it is reminiscent of many other films,there is something sufficiently fresh and different which makes it definitely stand out. The story could not be more simple.A dreamy looking young man waits alone in a café in Strasbourg scanning each female passer by in the hope that she may be Sylvia whom he met in the city six years ago.Eventually he sees someone who may be her and he begins to obsessively pursue her through a labyrinth of streets and alleyways.Yes, "Vertigo" is of course brought to mind and there is a wealth of allusions to the feminist theory of the controlling power of the male gaze.But there is more to it than that.The ditching of much narrative,characterisation and even dialogue give rise to a new form of cinema experience,a concentration on the purely sensuous aspect of cinema,an increased awareness of the power of everyday sights and sounds which cinema usually elides in favour of a forward thrusting narrative and a well-defined protagonist.

I've seen this movie at the Rotterdam Film Festival. A man is searching for a women he has met six years ago. Her name is Sylvia. For this purpose he returns to the city of Strasbourg. The movie ranges over a period of 3 days. The man, while searching through the city, visits known places, sits in a cafè, observes his environment. He listens to the people, watches at them, almost staring at them, so that the audience even gets the feeling of being a voyeur. And people he is starring at even don't notice that he did so or just ignore him. I did not like this film. There is almost no dialog in this film. And the story line is very slow, too slow. It had the effect of a sleeping pill on me. I would not recommend it.

I watched this film at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September, and I loved it. I woke up the following morning, and still thought about the film.

The film entrances the audience, as it turns us into the main character - it turns us into voyeurs. Although, watching films is a voyeuristic process, this film turns us into voyeurs, in the literal sense. We find ourselves spying on these women, the way the protagonist does - and we find ourselves searching for Sylvia…

Although 84 minutes long, there are only 3 - 4 lines of dialog, otherwise, be prepared for a lot of foot steps. I'd recommend it if you liked "Triplettes de Belleville."

This movie is set in a very sun-drenched francophone city, which didn't remind me of anywhere particular (though apparently it was Strasbourg). From my perspective it's the city of youth, and that's why the sun is always shining. The story concerns a young man with no name, played by Xavier Lafitte (eye candy for androphiles methinks), who I will henceforth refer to as X. He's this very bohemian looking youth who walks around in a white canvas suit and hangs out in front of a conservatory where he likes to sit with a beer and draw the lounging gazelles of the school.

He does a lot of observing and sketching, seemingly unhappy with some of his drawings, and then he sees a woman inside the café (called Sylvie) who he is mesmerised by. When she leaves he follows her, all over the city in fact, and even draws a map of where he's been afterwards. Along the way we see all sorts of uncanny shots, phantom images coming to life in tram windows and then disappearing, an obese tramp lolling around, a habitual trinket-seller, beautiful women. Everywhere there seems to be the same graffito, "Laure, je t'aime".

The most fetishistic shot is when X is outside Sylvie's apartment and her dress is slightly billowing in the wind, hung outside to dry presumably. Rene Magritte being saluted there I feel. Little blusters of wind are important in this film, we see X's sketchbook/journal having it's pages caressed by the wind quite a lot, in one shot this is used to show us a fragmentary look back at everything X has experienced, it's like reading his memory really (an awesome shot).

In another memorable shot we see a woman with long hair from behind having the outer hairs being blown up in a kind of halo (halos are another motif in this film, this woman he's following who may or may not be called Sylvie stands in front of a church at one point, with her head in the centre of a circular device on the church facade).

So the sound is also very heightened in the city of Sylvia. Somehow they've managed to portray in this film the way that sound carries on a hot summer day, many congratulations to the sound guys. You here all the little sounds, of cutlery, the clip clop of shoes etc. Makes for a very vividly real feeling.

X is following this woman throughout the movie, that's the movie, pretty much dialogue free. At night we see these crazy shots of his darkened bedroom with strange light plays caused by passing cars by, this feels like Guerin is coming at you with a knife after all the sunlit scenes that this movie is dominated by.

This is the 21st century's Last Year At Marienbad, and plays on the same themes of memory, and also the will to love.

OK so I forgot to mention there is this goth looking woman in the bar Les Aviateurs at one point, with red ribbons in her hair, goddamn she looked awesome.

Guerin should have either won at Veince (he was nominated) or have been brutally murdered for making this film. There's really something desperately nasty under the surface, that makes me shudder, even with all the beauty.

I saw this at the Sydney Fim Fest today and it was the third film in a row I saw, so that's maybe why I struggled to keep my eyes open :-) This film had such good ratings, especially all the 9's and 10's, that I decided to see it. Perhaps 3 out of 10 is a little harsh - I can see how Guerin's vision is unique in terms of creating the voyeuristic experience. There is virtually no dialogue so we are only left with the visual, which is relatively repetitive - and the sound, or often the lack thereof - once again repetitive and almost trance inducing, all those foot steps and the same extras. I'm going to go with the shallow end of the gene pool and call it "boring" - which is pretty trite considering that Guerin obviously thought a lot about how this film was going to be made and it is somewhat unique in that sense, I will give him that.... Most directors don't make such alienatory films.

I have a fondness with concentrated observation, and observation of sound in particular while moving through it. E.g. in a car moving through traffic, how to discern individual sound in the cacophony? It ties in with the true perception sought in meditation, the much sought embodiment that everything is empty and everything is in flux. With the right concentration even the most distressing cacophony of street traffic becomes a series of small events that arise and disappear - what is constant is the silence from which they arise and which is wonderfully impregnated with all possible sound.

There is a rich tradition of Zen Masters who, according to legend, attained their enlightenment at the ringing of a distant temple bell. And there is that parable about the awakened mind as a butterfly quietly resting on a bell. Even the Tibetans of the 'Diamond Vehicle', the most esoteric of all and riddled with ritual, stress the importance of allowing right concentration to be guided by the ear.

Heck, even the hack writers of those unimaginative and strictly practical 'make-your-own-film' guides stress the importance of good sound. They have intuitively grasped that it makes film come alive. Now images can play tricks to the mind like a cat chases after a piece of string, but sound is always true when perceived. Dreams are full of vivid imagery but empty of sound.

So it is always interesting to me to be able to slip into a film that has created a rich tappestry of sound; the effect is always aural, like a glove in which the concentrated mind can fit. Antonioni was a master of this, and more recently others like the Coens and Weeresethakul.

Guided by the ear, we discover here a city in motion. I prefer this to be tied to an adventurous camera, but here what moves is the world - usually we are fixed in place, the characters or camera. It is all about those fleeting glimpses of people fixed in place as the world moves, a world mute with answers but full with the buzz of life. And about reflections as those fleeting glimpses cast for a moment then gone again, fixed on faces in glass panels or behind them, in advertising billboards, or mute faces in a cafe obscuring one the other.

The eye casts upon this fleeting world its own associations of meaning and narrative, a last measure of holding on - here abstracted as the pursuit around town of the girl Sylvia, always elusive. The young portrait painter seeking her is always sketching faces in his book, hoping to contain what escapes him and finally surmise the elusive. But his sketches are equally mute with answers, pencil strokes unfinished suggesting vague outlines to be filled. The last sketch in his sketch book is the blank face of a woman beckoning "ssh!", the next pages are blank. A wind tosses the pages helter skelter.

Resnais was there some decades ago with Marienbad. Antonioni in a way. Yoshida, as transfiguring these two into his own rhetoric. Like those films, Sylvia is also a visualized drone about people caught in disparate planes of existence, fumbling each behind his own glass panel view of the world.

It's fine stuff, though being so distinctly French it will not arouse cinematic maelstroms. Or perhaps it will if it falls on the right ears, those transcendent shots of reflections and silhouettes on moving trains. It's a worthy film that you should watch.

After arriving at a city, an artist waits at an outdoor café and anticipates Sylvia's appearance. He then proceeds to follow a girl, but it turns out to be a mistake.

Without much dialogue or dramatic genuflections, viewers may find that José Luis Guerin's latest film takes some time to absorb. Pushing the clichéd man searching for woman narrative aside it is possible to interpret the film from several view points. It is an abstract film about Strasbourg (almost unidentifiable as several languages are heard), it is about observing women (mediated through the male gaze), and may also be seen as simply tracing an obsession.

The title is somewhat misleading as Sylvia remains absent and emerges only as an image (a combination of all the women "elles" the man has sketched) throughout the film. Even the subheadings (the first, second, and third night) are ambiguous as most scenes happen during the daytime. Yet the three parts are ingeniously linked by the café waitress with slightly different but highly related scenes. The ending in which the man follows the waitress suggests a continuation of his romantic search. The narrative ambiguities are successfully compensated by Guerin's reinvention of cinema as a tool to record and provide a vision beyond one's naked eye. Other details, such as the repetitions (the same graffiti and wallet peddler, even the girl's gesture resembles the advertisement model's), sound effects (the woman's footsteps), and use of off-screen space further generate pleasure for perceptive viewers of this light piece.

I only ever write a review if I feel strongly about a film. I went to watch this movie with a friend in Manchester, to say it was boring would be a compliment! In fact I overheard to ladies say "I wish Mark had come to watch this movie, it would have been great punishment" and I could not have described it better myself! This movie is truly bad….I love world cinema but this film had no story line, hardly any dialect and the scenery itself was poor. If you want to wonder through streets following strangers then this is the movie for you! but do not expect to see any great architecture as all you will see is walls and tarmac! Within five minutes of the movie the boredom is set, having to observe a guy starring into space….and quite frankly the boredom never really leaves, I sat through this movie thinking it may get better but unfortunately it just gets worse, don't waste your money or your time in going to watch this especially dire film!

Quaffing beer after beer in a café in sun-soaked Strasbourg is a pleasure none of us have enjoyed quite as much as we'd like. In the City of Sylvia is the next best thing, and has the benefit of costing a lot less. This really is pure cinema as it was originally intended: an absolute delight for the senses that is appealing on a base level, but has depth to it too. With virtually no dialogue, the film instead indulges in simple pleasures, and a simple idea goes with it: A man, who we know only as 'Él', returns to the city to find a woman he thought he met years before. After apparently seeing her in the café, he follows her through the winding streets, its dark corners and its open spaces. It's a profile of a city paradise, where we hear only sounds of footsteps and overheard, muffled conversations, but we are presented with a picture of extreme beauty and wonderment. A world of youthful optimism, of desperate yearning, and of love for the sake of love is put across through a beautiful setting filled with almost exclusively beautiful people. It's Él's perspective of the world we see, and it's a naive one. But that doesn't really matter. An hour and a half of blissful naivety is OK from time to time, so just bask and luxuriate in its hedonistic glory.

An unnamed artist (Xavier Lafitte) is both an observer and a participant in Catalan director José Luis Guerin's hypnotic In the City of Sylvia. A film with little dialogue, it celebrates the simple art of looking and seeing. Revisiting the city of Strasbourg after six years, the young man with a wisp of a beard who might pass for a grad student is looking for Sylvia, a woman he met in a club six years ago. The film has no story, no beginning and no end. It is about the quest, the seeking, the longing for connection that some find and others do not.

Set in Strasbourg, France during the summer months as gorgeously depicted by cinematographer Natasha Braie, the film is separated into three nights, though it mostly takes place during the day. In "Night One" the young man sits on his bed in his budget hotel room barely moving. A notebook in his hand, he seems to be deep in thought as if he is planning his next move with extreme care. Leaving the room, he walks down the street seeking out the spot where he first met Sylvia. Like Anders in Jonathan Trier's Oslo, August 31, he sits in an open air café drinking beer and watches the faces of the people around him who are mostly young women.

Unlike Anders, however, we do not listen in on people's conversations but only observe lips moving, people smiling, whispering in each other's ears, laughing, looking happy, bored or angry. With the sound of street musicians playing in the background and beggars asking for coins or cigarettes, the scene is a microscope of humanity in all its diversity and moods. The man sketches faces of women conversing with friends, reading, or just sitting by themselves enjoying a drink. Always his eyes are peeled to spot Sylvia, his first love. The scene conveys less of an Anders-like feeling of alienation than a wistful longing, an anticipation that increasingly seems like an unobtainable ideal.

On the next night, he notices an elegant young woman (Pilar Lopez de Ayala) whom he thinks might be Sylvia. As she leaves the café, he follows her through a labyrinth of cobblestone streets, back alleys, courtyards, and busy shopping areas, frequently passing graffiti on a wall proclaiming "Laure - Je t'aime." As he gets closer to the woman, the man backs away, reluctant to spoil the dream. When the two finally connect on a tram, she tells him with a beatific smile on her face that she is not Sylvia, that she did not like him stalking her, and that she would like him not to get off the tram when she does.

Apologetic and looking crestfallen, the man dutifully obeys but we sense that he still thinks that she is the woman he is looking for. In the City of Sylvia cannot really be described but must be experienced to appreciate. It is like trying to describe the Mona Lisa to someone who has never seen it. It is a film of mystery and atmosphere, of memory and desire, foreign and obscure, yet achingly real and familiar. It captures a universal quality that we may have experienced at some time in our life, a vision of the ideal, the holy other, the promise that will turn our mundane existence into something sublime. It is a superb achievement.

How someone loved ALL of this movie, I cannot comprehend. It started off just strangely and slowly enough to captivate the audience. The middle of the movie was a bit long, drawn out, too self glorifying for words, and excessively contrived. But, I gave it a chance. Me, the most impatient person :)So, I sat there, only made a few snide, whispered remarks and continued to wait for the amazing ending that would bring the whole movie together and make me have at least a lilliputian epiphany. Needless to say, that semi interesting or even minimally boring ending did not come. Instead, the movie that had an amazing understanding of people, their emotions and how they express them, sometimes unwittingly, everywhere they go forgot to actually finish. The movie could have been amazing. The director could have done so much. So much more with it. But they did not, and what a waste. Which is why it is in the movie trash category that all independent movies without the last third go to. Too bad. Watch it, it is worth watching, but know to not expect much out of this sadly massacred film.

What you get when you have significant money - and zero ideas. There is no story. It's a pointless joke, without a punchline, and a waste of time (unless you have an interest in pretty people walking around). If you hit the "fast forward" button you'll have wasted only 40 minutes, instead of 80. And, believe me, you won't miss a thing.

If you read through the reviews for "Dans la ville de Sylvia", you'll notice something very unusual...a lot of 10s and quite a few 1s and 2s! It's because this is clearly an art film...one you'll either adore or which will drive you mad! I think, after seeing the movie, that I understand why. The film might be seen by some viewers as extremely deliberate and lovely....while many others might find it interminably slow and dull. It certainly is NOT like a typical film and has arthouse written all over it. For example, in the opening scene, you see the leading man staring into space and doing nothing for a very long time. I kid you not...I thought the DVD was stuck!! Just before ejecting the DVD, I noticed the guy's hand move...and I knew what sort of film it was going to be!

What follows is pretty much a SLIGHTLY faster paced story...slightly. Much of the time, you see the protagonist staring at people...and doing nothing else. The man, it seems, is sort of a non-sexualized voyeur...watching everyone around him and sketching what he sees. He particularly is enthralled by a woman he calls Sylvia...and it smacks, in some ways, as a creepy sort of obsession...a stalker. After all, he doesn't know the woman but is really, really, really infatuated with everything about her and follows her about town.

During much of the film, I kept finding myself thinking 'this might be seen as artsy but the director doesn't seem to understand editing and pacing. Also, the camerawork was odd...with a stationaryl camera* and very abrupt edits. All these made me confused about all the 10s. Ditto with the woman just staring into space. Perhaps I am just a hyper person but I wanted to see about 50% of the film excised to improve the pacing. A dull, dull film for me....but perhaps you'll enjoy it's strangeness and glacial pacing.

By the way, one reviewer refered to this film as 'true cinema'....yeah, whatever. I thought pretty much ALL moving pictures are true cinema.

*The great Japanese director, Ozu, used a camera at floor level and also did not use zooms and kept the camera 100% still most of the time. It worked in his movies because the stories and characters were engaging. But with the detached sort of story here, it only made the film more dull in my opinion.