| new release -¦¦- IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA -¦¦- 7/10 -¦¦- review online April 2nd |
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 In the City of Sylvia is a love-letter, of sorts: a love-letter to the city of Strasbourg (particularly the scruffier corners and back-streets of the genteel centre), and a love-letter to love itself, to the idea of romantic pursuit and romantic reverie, romantic recollection, romantic self-delusion, romantic idealism, the powerful evanescence of young love. And it's very much an open letter, an open text, a sensory experience in which the viewer - or rather the viewer/listener - must allow themselves to be immersed, a flanerie sustained by the gentlest wisp of story: "plot" is too strong a word to describe the narrative "structure" of this film, which is much more about moods, impressions, sensations and their repetitions. A nameless young artist arrives in Strasbourg, where six years before he had become besotted with a certain woman in a certain cafe. Spending his days sketching ladies in his pad, our meek, floppy-haired, pretty-boy protagonist suddenly glimpses what he takes to be his previous paramour, Sylvie, and sets off on what develops into a kind of game whereby she leads him on and on around the city's labyrinth of alleyways. The truth, when it arrives, is rather more prosaic than our man-child hero expects, providing an amusingly bittersweet coda to a teasingly enigmatic, largely dialogue-free hour which walks a tricky line between delicate beauty and arch, pretentious posturing (everyone acts as if they're in a highbrow French art-movie). Not for everyone, and many will quickly tire of the air of preciousness that hovers over the enterprise from the earliest frames. But there are moments and sequences of genuine transcendence here, and In the City of Sylvia ultimately repays our indulgence and attention, lingering in the memory almost as potently as the Sylvie did in the mind of our hapless young hero. Neil Young 2nd April, 2009  original title : En la ciudad de Sylvia / Dans la ville de Sylviadirector : Jose Luis Guerin country : France/Spain year : 2007 ('depot legal' date 2008) run-time : 85m (BBFC) seen : 29th March, 2009 cinema : The Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle format : digital paid : £6.70 MVP : Jose Luis Guerin respected second opinion : Daniel Kasman, D-Kaz |
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