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20 out of 25 people found the following review useful: The quintessential film about people-watching, 8 October 2007 Author: Frank Pan (andreirublev@msn.com) from Vacnouver
It is about time that we stop using the term "voyeur" to describe every film where the audience is given an opportunity to gaze at women. There is so much else in addition to the gazing, observing, and following. What the film captures is the harmony between the observer and the environment: a total immersion in its atmosphere. In an era where portable audio devices eliminate people's attention to their surroundings, the film almost feels like a timely persuasion: watch what you see, and listen to what you hear. Remember the essence of cinema: sound, images, and movements. The film also bears a sign of timelessness through its universal theme: a romantic's pursuit of his dreams in la vie quotidienne. As an ostensibly subjective film, it also includes many mysterious scenes where the identify of the observer is ambiguous. Some people think that those scenes come from the imagination of our protagonist - or could it be the filmmaker, or the viewer? This movie is nothing less than a timely and timeless masterpiece. It provides compelling evidence that cinema is far from dying; as a matter of fact, it has hardly been as exciting and alive.
15 out of 19 people found the following review useful: True cinema., 19 July 2008 Author: crappydoo from New Zealand
This film made me feel like I had just undertaken a short vacation to a European city and returned. I basked in the splendour of visuals, sound and delightful observations of the city, its sounds and its people, particularly the young women, going about doing their thing. It made me smile, laugh and delighted me to simply observe.I sincerely believe that it is extremely difficult for directors to make a good mood piece which keeps the viewer interested and does not lull him/her to sleep. Very few directors have this ability and I was thrilled to have experienced the keen sense of observation of the director of this film. I think I can actually count the total number of dialogues on my fingertips. There is a story in the background, but it is really not important to this film.So before watching this, remember that you will be observing a piece of art in motion and not a movie with a particular story. This is how I believe cinema was supposed to be when it first was invented over a 120 years ago - as a medium of art in motion, and not for storytelling as it has been diluted to over the past century.So, brilliant job, director, for you have realised the true meaning of cinema and have delivered us an excellent piece for the years to come. I sincerely hope I see more work from you heading into this direction in the future.
12 out of 17 people found the following review useful: An artistic and beautiful film, 21 September 2007 Author: Aaron Muchelle (xntrikbrew@hotmail.com) from Toronto, Canada
I watched this film at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September, and I loved it. I woke up the following morning, and still thought about the film.The film entrances the audience, as it turns us into the main character - it turns us into voyeurs. Although, watching films is a voyeuristic process, this film turns us into voyeurs, in the literal sense. We find ourselves spying on these women, the way the protagonist does - and we find ourselves searching for Sylvia…Although 84 minutes long, there are only 3 - 4 lines of dialog, otherwise, be prepared for a lot of foot steps. I'd recommend it if you liked "Triplettes de Belleville."
8 out of 11 people found the following review useful: A huge success on its own terms., 7 June 2008 Author: wooodenelephant from Spain
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.
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Towards a new cinema?, 12 March 2009 Author: robert burton from United Kingdom
It is one of the most written about and blogged about films of the last few years.References abound,from Bresson to Hitchcock,Rohmer,Murnau,even Dante and Petrarch,but is it too slender to sustain such a formidable weight of cultural allusions? While it is undoubtedly true that it is reminiscent of many other films,there is something sufficiently fresh and different which makes it definitely stand out. The story could not be more simple.A dreamy looking young man waits alone in a café in Strasbourg scanning each female passer by in the hope that she may be Sylvia whom he met in the city six years ago.Eventually he sees someone who may be her and he begins to obsessively pursue her through a labyrinth of streets and alleyways.Yes, "Vertigo" is of course brought to mind and there is a wealth of allusions to the feminist theory of the controlling power of the male gaze.But there is more to it than that.The ditching of much narrative,characterisation and even dialogue give rise to a new form of cinema experience,a concentration on the purely sensuous aspect of cinema,an increased awareness of the power of everyday sights and sounds which cinema usually elides in favour of a forward thrusting narrative and a well-defined protagonist.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: A film for people watchers, 23 March 2009 Author: Keith Marr from United Kingdom
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I've selected "may contain spoilers" although I'm not entirely sure you could spoil the experience of watching this in anyway by describing the entire "narrative". Boy sees girl, boy follows girl, boy finally talks to girl. Nothing much happens. I've given it 10 out of 10. That's 10 out of 10 if you're a people watcher of course! The observational skills required of the viewer remind me of the opening scene in the airport in Jacques Tati's "Playtime". I thought when I read the synopsis that it would be hard going but the time just flew by and the credits appeared all too soon.There have been discussions about the film being voyeurism, that it seeks to ogle women in the disguise of an art film. This is not how it struck me. The photography is ravishing and the actors are very beautiful I grant you, but the film as art idea that Guerin is pursuing here means it is inevitable that we look at beauty. Surely the boy is just as beautiful anyway. Are we voyeurs when we enter an art gallery or are we just innocent viewers who like beauty? It's an ongoing discussion between two points of view which will never see eye to eye and so is a redundant criticism of this film. I sense the dead hand of excessive Political Correctness here.Yes there are continuity errors people (what film hasn't), his jacket disappears between one shot and another at one stage for example. My point would be that it doesn't really matter. It doesn't impinge on the experience.Has he made a mistake or is she just trying to deny her way out of renewing the acquaintance? I wasn't sure that it was a mistake, he seems so certain. As in Haneke's "Hidden" Guerin does not provide us with a definitive answer. In this style of cinema, and I agree with the comments about this being film as art, who needs answers! Certainly not everybody's type of film, one or two walked out at the NFT3 viewing I was at, but for those of us prepared to put in the level of concentration required it was pure delight.
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful: An abstract film about a city, its women, and a romantic obsession, 27 September 2008 Author: (pei_yin_lin@hotmail.com) from United Kingdom
After arriving at a city, an artist waits at an outdoor café and anticipates Sylvia's appearance. He then proceeds to follow a girl, but it turns out to be a mistake.Without much dialogue or dramatic genuflections, viewers may find that José Luis Guerin's latest film takes some time to absorb. Pushing the clichéd man searching for woman narrative aside it is possible to interpret the film from several view points. It is an abstract film about Strasbourg (almost unidentifiable as several languages are heard), it is about observing women (mediated through the male gaze), and may also be seen as simply tracing an obsession.The title is somewhat misleading as Sylvia remains absent and emerges only as an image (a combination of all the women "elles" the man has sketched) throughout the film. Even the subheadings (the first, second, and third night) are ambiguous as most scenes happen during the daytime. Yet the three parts are ingeniously linked by the café waitress with slightly different but highly related scenes. The ending in which the man follows the waitress suggests a continuation of his romantic search. The narrative ambiguities are successfully compensated by Guerin's reinvention of cinema as a tool to record and provide a vision beyond one's naked eye. Other details, such as the repetitions (the same graffiti and wallet peddler, even the girl's gesture resembles the advertisement model's), sound effects (the woman's footsteps), and use of off-screen space further generate pleasure for perceptive viewers of this light piece.
5 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Interesting Film..., 18 July 2008 Author: Gal Appelbaum from Brazil
well, many of the people above me wrote that the movie was bad, but I actually really enjoyed it. I watched it in the Jerusalem Film Festival, and to be honest, one of the best movies I have seen. why? first of all, the cinematography is amazing. they have in most of the shots beautiful views, and interesting ways to film. second of all, the sound was VERY well made, and basically, those are the two main factors that make this movie a good movie. I think that you have MAX 100-200 words in the whole movie, and it is more of an artistic film, without really a very complex story to tell...I enjoyed it a lot, and I recommend it to Cinema lovers, because of its complex and interesting ways of film, and the wonderful soundtrack. if you are going to just "watch a movie"don't go because you will get bored.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Perception and death, 12 July 2009 Author: matthewscott8 from United Kingdom
This movie is set in a very sun-drenched francophone city, which didn't remind me of anywhere particular (though apparently it was Strasbourg). From my perspective it's the city of youth, and that's why the sun is always shining. The story concerns a young man with no name, played by Xavier Lafitte (eye candy for androphiles methinks), who I will henceforth refer to as X. He's this very bohemian looking youth who walks around in a white canvas suit and hangs out in front of a conservatory where he likes to sit with a beer and draw the lounging gazelles of the school.He does a lot of observing and sketching, seemingly unhappy with some of his drawings, and then he sees a woman inside the café (called Sylvie) who he is mesmerised by. When she leaves he follows her, all over the city in fact, and even draws a map of where he's been afterwards. Along the way we see all sorts of uncanny shots, phantom images coming to life in tram windows and then disappearing, an obese tramp lolling around, a habitual trinket-seller, beautiful women. Everywhere there seems to be the same graffito, "Laure, je t'aime". The most fetishistic shot is when X is outside Sylvie's apartment and her dress is slightly billowing in the wind, hung outside to dry presumably. Rene Magritte being saluted there I feel. Little blusters of wind are important in this film, we see X's sketchbook/journal having it's pages caressed by the wind quite a lot, in one shot this is used to show us a fragmentary look back at everything X has experienced, it's like reading his memory really (an awesome shot).In another memorable shot we see a woman with long hair from behind having the outer hairs being blown up in a kind of halo (halos are another motif in this film, this woman he's following who may or may not be called Sylvie stands in front of a church at one point, with her head in the centre of a circular device on the church facade).So the sound is also very heightened in the city of Sylvia. Somehow they've managed to portray in this film the way that sound carries on a hot summer day, many congratulations to the sound guys. You here all the little sounds, of cutlery, the clip clop of shoes etc. Makes for a very vividly real feeling.X is following this woman throughout the movie, that's the movie, pretty much dialogue free. At night we see these crazy shots of his darkened bedroom with strange light plays caused by passing cars by, this feels like Guerin is coming at you with a knife after all the sunlit scenes that this movie is dominated by.This is the 21st century's Last Year At Marienbad, and plays on the same themes of memory, and also the will to love.OK so I forgot to mention there is this goth looking woman in the bar Les Aviateurs at one point, with red ribbons in her hair, goddamn she looked awesome.Guerin should have either won at Veince (he was nominated) or have been brutally murdered for making this film. There's really something desperately nasty under the surface, that makes me shudder, even with all the beauty.
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Loose docufiction whimsy, 13 March 2009 Author: Framescourer from London, UK
I am loathe to say this as I rather enjoyed having a proxy version of my favourite (London) past time - watching people. However, this is a misconceived, ill-constructed film which makes a palindromic attempt to inflate a document of urban life whilst deconstructing a (half-baked) thriller.The film is three acted (three 'nights'). In the first a man watches girls. In the second he follows one. In the third he watches them again, although there's a suggestion that he may have acted on what he's learnt from the first two. The film's merits are largely to do with the unimpeachably youthful beauty of the principals, although Michaël Balerdi, the young man, is a distractingly weak actor. As I mentioned I also liked the nicely photographed corners of Strasbourg and the drama inherent in the smattering of tracking shots...... alas, these tracking shots are mucky, inconsistently rendered (an un-steadycam?). The continuity errors are glaring. I was also easily off-put by boom mic intrusion and imperfections on the print, as well as hopelessly rendered foley sound (really bad!).The worst thing - and this is no one's fault - is that once the 'pursuit' gets going, the film immediately looks like the opening sequence of Michael Haneke's Caché. If you even begin to compare these similarly themed films Guerin's piece begins to look very clumsy indeed. 3/10
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