NYFF. In the City of Sylvia.

"[I]t is this work's simplicity that makes it impossible to summarize; jettisoning plot for an enigmatic, open-ended cinematic tone," writes Daniel Kasman. "To allegorize the man's search is certainly possible, but considering the anonymity of the city, the abstraction of the search, and the incredible, lucid, and devastating interactions he eventually has with the city's women after his ardent, almost too-fixated stalking, it would be a disservice to the simple, sublime artistry of In the City of Sylvia to tie it down to a static, stable meaning that its vision of life, of cinema, and of life as cinema - as searching for recognition, reclaiming memories, furrowing through a tumult of incredible sounds and visions to find that meaning so personal to the viewer - that the film so lucidly rejects."

Updated through 10/15.

"At its most basic, In the City of Sylvia is about the male gaze on the female, and much of its 84 minutes is spent lingering on a seemingly endless sea of beautiful female faces," writes Filmbrain. "It's the type of film that could easily slip into pretentious twaddle, but skillfully manages to avoid doing so."

"What would be a two minute interlude in a Ho'wood dramedy for twentysomethings occupies roughly 80% of this film. Sounds like something to test your patience, but In the City of Sylvia actually tests your sensitivity - emotional, sensual and philosophical," writes Steven Boone at the House Next Door.

"The man with the movie camera, writer-director José Luis Guerin, conjures a spellbinding relationship between background and foreground planes," writes Ed Gonzalez at Slant. "Seemingly aimed at voyeurs, the film is built on sensuous interplays between people and objects, reality and representation, implying something profound is at risk here, and the simultaneous thrill and danger of every scene nearly stops the heart."

"As in [José Luis Guerín's] En Construcción, the seemingly incidental, interstitial sequences of passing shadows become a reflection of a resurfaced, dislocated past - a transformed memory that not only grows more ephemeral with the passage of time but also continues to reinsert its own vitality in the present," writes acquarello.

Girish likes the film but wonders "if Unas fotos en la ciudad de Sylvia ('Some Photographs in the City of Sylvia'), the film he made as a sort of 'sketch' or 'study' to precede it, is as good, perhaps even better."

Earlier: Reviews from Toronto.

Update, 10/15: At european-films.net, Boyd van Hoeij talks with director José Luis Guerín and actress Pilar López de Ayala, who plays the woman the dreamer has decided must be Sylvie.

Posted by dwhudson at October 14, 2007 2:33 PM