A dream-like movie

You're gonna have to cope with my movie posts until the festival ends. Last night I went to watch "en la ciudad de Sylvia"(in the city of Sylvia) and "Unas fotos en la ciudad del Sylvia" (photos in the city of Sylvia) , two back to back movies from Spanish director, Jose Luis Guerin.

"en la ciudad..." shows us this young man (super good looking!) that sits in a street cafe and watches women. We don't know why (and we won't find out for a long time).. but that's not the point. The way he looks at these women and makes sketches in his notebook is what's interesting. The way he notices little things and movements. Then he starts following this one woman and the chasing scene is just absolutely beautiful... I can't describe it, you have to watch it for yourself.

The movie felt like a dream... it had an amazing quality to it... for one thing there was almost no dialog in it... there were a lot of different sounds though (and they did a superb job of sound recording and editing I thought), you could hear the wind, the street musicians, people walking and talking, everything. But what blew my mind was the imagery... every frame could be a perfect photo... the camera shot each location from many different angles... of course, it really helped that the movie was shot in Strasbourg, the old streets and buildings introduced so much character into the movie.

the second movie, that was screening for the first time, was actually a slide show of these old photos that the director had taken in Strasbourg before making the film and had used to get ideas. You could instantly see how he had translated the images into the movie and if you enjoy photography, you'll enjoy this slide show as well. It is absolutely silent though, I could hear the theater seats creaking and people whispering and all!

The movie had a very simple plot, and according to what the director said at the screening, he intended for the viewers to enjoy this simplicity. I know I did.

Here's a very short clip from the movie: