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Friday, April 11, 2008 --- 31 days ago http://killthesnark.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-4-2008-wisconsin-film-festival.html
| En La Ciudad de Sylvia (Spain/France, 2007) * * * D: José Luis Guerín Today we saw two lightweight films with almost no narrative, but lingering, loving views of France, both filmed by outsiders to the country, clearly smitten. The first, from Spain, was this film, which actually owes a great deal to Jacques Tati's Playtime (probably one of the ten greatest films ever made). Dialogue-free for long, long stretches, José Luis Guerín's film follows the gaze of a young artist (Xavier Lafitte, looking like he just rode in from Peter Jackson's Rivendell) who sits at a French caf é watching the passers-by--mostly the many beautiful women, and drawing their profiles and the backs of their necks in his sketchbook with a charcoal pencil. A waitress gets her orders confused and spills a drink; a couple sit in icy silence for an eternity until one answers, "No, probably not. But I'll think about it." Young women gossip and flirt. Eventually our artist gets up and follows one of the women, pursuing her through labyrinthine streets, bumping up against street vendors, commuters, and street musicians, always in pursuit of the elusive woman, whom he thinks he recognizes from somewhere else. It's a languorous, sensual film in which almost nothing happens, but it nonetheless contains enough to recommend it, from the playful, Tati-esque running jokes in the background, to the complicated layering of faces, bodies, and moving trains reflected in ... |
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