Howard Schumann 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.

Martin Bradley 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.

Keith Marr I've selected "may contain spoilers" although I'm not entirely sure you could spoil the experience of watching this in anyway by describing the entire "narrative". Boy sees girl, boy follows girl, boy finally talks to girl. Nothing much happens. I've given it 10 out of 10. That's 10 out of 10 if you're a people watcher of course! The observational skills required of the viewer remind me of the opening scene in the airport in Jacques Tati's "Playtime". I thought when I read the synopsis that it would be hard going but the time just flew by and the credits appeared all too soon.There have been discussions about the film being voyeurism, that it seeks to ogle women in the disguise of an art film. This is not how it struck me. The photography is ravishing and the actors are very beautiful I grant you, but the film as art idea that Guerin is pursuing here means it is inevitable that we look at beauty. Surely the boy is just as beautiful anyway. Are we voyeurs when we enter an art gallery or are we just innocent viewers who like beauty? It's an ongoing discussion between two points of view which will never see eye to eye and so is a redundant criticism of this film. I sense the dead hand of excessive Political Correctness here.Yes there are continuity errors people (what film hasn't), his jacket disappears between one shot and another at one stage for example. My point would be that it doesn't really matter. It doesn't impinge on the experience.Has he made a mistake or is she just trying to deny her way out of renewing the acquaintance? I wasn't sure that it was a mistake, he seems so certain. As in Haneke's "Hidden" Guerin does not provide us with a definitive answer. In this style of cinema, and I agree with the comments about this being film as art, who needs answers! Certainly not everybody's type of film, one or two walked out at the NFT3 viewing I was at, but for those of us prepared to put in the level of concentration required it was pure delight.

wooodenelephant 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.