It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Blistering performances.

A handsome young man hangs around a cafe drawing and watching women. The shots are good, the filming accomplished, the setting a fine French city (Bordeaux, I thought, but it's Strasbourg). After about 40 minutes of this, the man follows one of the women. For about 20 minutes. Down one street. Up another. (Spoiler) Finally he speaks to her. She's not Sylvia, the woman he thought she was. Did he really think she was Sylvia? They part. He carries on watching and drawing women. He glimpses her once again. (Spoiler) The End. I love beautiful and boring films - but not this one - there are no ideas, there is no tension to redeem it. 7 out of 10 for style; 0 out of 10 for substance.

Gone with the Wind. When Harry Met Sally. The English Patient. While these are all great love stories, I have to ask: is ANYONE's life really like that? Here we have a film that's just as cinematically powerful, and yet it tells a love story which most of us have probably experienced. Plain & simple, this is the story of a missed encounter revisited years later. Based on director José Luis Guerín's real life experience, this is the story of an artist who meets a girl and, years later, returns to the city where they met. He has only a handful of clues as to who she is or where she may be: a cocktail napkin with a map drawn on it, a box of matches, and a vague recollection of what she looked like.What follows is a very poetic 80 minutes of people watching. He sees girls who look like her but he's not sure, so he scrutinizes them from a distance, draws them, on occasion follows them or tries to strike up a conversation. Wow, that sounds sorta creepy. But it's not. That's largely due to the lead actor's innocent boyish looks--the kind where he could stare at you for 10 minutes and you never feel threatened. He is purely an observer, and for anyone who has always wanted to indulge in people-watching but never dared for fear of being arrested, "In the City of Sylvia" is a real treat.One thing to bear in mind is that this is a very motionless story. I mean that literally as well as figuratively. Camera shots are very still and lingering while the plot is equally slow. So if you're looking for a typical Hollywood love story you shouldn't even bother with this. But if the phrase "a picture is worth 1,000 words" means anything to you, then this is worth checking out.Like I said in the beginning, this is a love story we've all been through, whether literally or in our whimsical reveries. All of us have that certain stranger burned into our brain from years ago: someone at a bus stop, the person you sat behind in junior high, the checkout person at a grocery store whom you had a momentary soul connection with. Wouldn't it be interesting to try to find them years later? Or is it best left idealized in our nostalgic memory? One way or another, it's this sort of mysterious longing that embodies the essence of romance. I'm grateful to director José Luis Guerín for showing us the beauty in it.

I only ever write a review if I feel strongly about a film. I went to watch this movie with a friend in Manchester, to say it was boring would be a compliment! In fact I overheard to ladies say "I wish Mark had come to watch this movie, it would have been great punishment" and I could not have described it better myself! This movie is truly bad….I love world cinema but this film had no story line, hardly any dialect and the scenery itself was poor. If you want to wonder through streets following strangers then this is the movie for you! but do not expect to see any great architecture as all you will see is walls and tarmac! Within five minutes of the movie the boredom is set, having to observe a guy starring into space….and quite frankly the boredom never really leaves, I sat through this movie thinking it may get better but unfortunately it just gets worse, don't waste your money or your time in going to watch this especially dire film!

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.