In the City of Sylvia (2007)
"En la ciudad de Sylvia" (original title)

A man returns to a city to try to track down a lovely woman he met six years earlier.

Director:

José Luis Guerín

Writer:

José Luis Guerín

Stars:

Pilar López de Ayala, Xavier Lafitte, Laurence Cordier

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview:
Pilar López de Ayala	...	Ella
Xavier Lafitte	...	Él
Laurence Cordier
Tanja Czichy	...	Tanja
Eric Dietrich
Charlotte Dupont

Storyline

A man returns to a city to try to track down a lovely woman he met six years earlier.

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Plot Keywords:

pursuit | sketching | street

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site [jp]

Country:

Spain France

Language:

French Spanish

Release Date:

14 September 2007 (Spain)

Also Known As:

In the City of Sylvia

Filming Locations:

Café du TNS-Théatre National de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Eddie Saeta S.A., Château-Rouge Production, Televisión Española (TVE)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min 84 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Connections

Featured in Ebert Presents: At the Movies: Episode #1.22 (2011)

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Soundtracks

"Heart of Glass"
Written by Deborah Harry (as Harry), Chris Stein (as Stein)
Performed by Blondie

User Reviews

Perception and death

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.