In the City of Sylvia

A film by José Luis Guerín

A deceptively simple tale of a man's return to a city, in search of the woman that he loved six years earlier. The young man, an artist whose name we do not know, has come alone and on a whim to Strasbourg in order to find a beautiful woman called Sylvia whom he remembers from six years ago. It is not clear whether a relationship between them ever existed or if their meeting was just a chance encounter. He has no way of contacting her and nothing but a map she drew for him on a napkin, but he knows she was then a student at the Conservatoire. It is here that he is now seated in an outdoor café as he begins his task of waiting, watching and hoping. As he sips his beer he makes pencil sketches in his notebook of the young women who surround him, whilst patiently waiting for his lost love to appear. A glance, a gesture, a smile – precious moments captured which might somehow lead him to Sylvia or perhaps draw her to him. Sylvia's presence lingers, but is it possible to return to the past?

Suddenly a delicate and lovely young woman who may be Sylvia catches his eye, and after some deliberation, he abruptly leaves his table at the café to chase after the girl. Obsessively following her almost like a stalker, he calls out to her, "Sylvie?". Losing her momentarily in a labyrinth of alleys and streets, he then gets very close but we cannot be certain at this point whether she is aware of his presence. The girl boards a tram and he follows her. Again he asks her name, "Sylvie?" and then she speaks to him.

An outstanding, superbly shot and hauntingly enigmatic interior drama, perfectly capturing the sense of longing, unfulfilled desire and simple voyeuristic pleasure. The almost total absence of dialogue and the skilful use of shifting perspective allows us to follow the thoughts and musings of this young man and to join him as an observer of people amidst life in a French city. In being a part of the flânerie sustained by the gentlest thread of a story we become immersed and entranced by its moods, impressions, sensations and their repetitions. We find that we are observing a piece of art in motion, one in which we are free to provide the characterisation ourselves, by inference or reconstruction – exploring the power of the imagination over reality, bringing the magic of the dream into the everyday world.