Na Cidade de Sylvia

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.

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.

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 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."

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.