En la ciudad de Sylvia (In the City of Sylvia)

Voltaire wrote that madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively. The latter can be applied to Él, in the film In The City of Sylvia, who is searching for the woman he briefly met 6 years previously. We are invited to follow him in his pursuit of this woman, Sylvia.

There’s hardly any dialogue, the film revolves around a visual narrative. Él, the tourist, sitting in cafes in Strasbourg (and to be honest, this town reminds me of the fictitious town of Hollyoaks where only beautiful people exist!!) studying maps of where the elusive Sylvia might be. His memories of this brief encounter are based on a drawing and that she was student. The director, José Luis Guerín, uses the cinematography and sound techniques to highlight Él’s quest. The constant labyrinth of backstreets, where we, the viewer, follow him while he follows obsessively a woman who may or may not be Sylvia.

 Él is a voyeur, who watches women while sitting in cafes, sipping his beer obsessively sketching. The camera hones in on these women, intimately gazing at various non-verbal gestures and expressions, objectifying them. And camera acts as Él, the power of the male gaze. And the viewer is a spectator.

He glimpses a young attractive woman, a brunette, who he believes to be Sylivia and follows her feverishly around the backstreets of this town. Stalking her, wrapped up in his own obsession of the fantasy he has constructed about Sylvia. Indeed there are elements of Hitchcock’s Vertigo but at least that did have suspense this does not instead I couldn’t care less and started to feel very irritated by this man especially his disregard for women, and him invading their space.

There’s no consideration or respect given to the women he gazes at, transfixed, deluded by the belief that one of them may be Sylvia. A needle in a haystack? Is this a futile exercise? And is he really interested in Sylvia, the real woman, or is it the fantasy he has conjured up that compels him?

The film has had good reviews, funnily enough the reviews which give it rave reviews have been written by men, some describe it as a ‘romance’. I found it creepy, the unnerving experience of unwanted attention by a man. And the added fear of being stalked. Yet we don’t see it from the woman’s point of view. We glimpse her expressions fleetingly but the emphasis is on the man and his reactions.

When Él is reprimanded by a woman, he doesn’t get it, he is so self-absorbed and unaware to understand the fear he is instilling and the irresponsibility of his actions. Is he consciously aware of his behaviour? And the male film reviewers don’t touch on this at all.

Does the film have anything to say? The cinematography is beautiful, the clever emphasis on sound editing and the sparse dialogue gives it realism. Along with seeing people beyond speech and language by concentrating on non-verbal communication and expressions.

That was interesting but it was overall a superficial film. It doesn’t draw you in except as a spectator in the gaze and the voyeurism.

There is so much lacking, it is a fractured film. More exploration of obsession, even how brief encounters can shape and dominate our lives (the ‘what if’ scenario) but I don’t think that is what José Luis Guerín was trying to present. Instead we get a brief snap shot over 3 days of this man’s quest and fixation.

Why did this man wait 6 years to track Sylvia down? And gawd only knows why he didn’t take her phone number 6 years previously….