Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

stvdogg 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.

minkvill 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.

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.

bapla 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.