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.
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.