Were you snoring next to SFist Wendy at the movies the other night?

Our fellow SFisters weren’t alone in the lyrical department this week. We signed on for the SFIFF's In the City of Sylvia, a film described as “simple” and “classical.” More importantly for us – since we love all things French (or almost) – the film was set in Strasbourg. It wasn’t until we already had our ticket and were ready to enter the theater that we learned that our “French” simple, classical film was also “atmospheric,” “slow-moving,” and that it would be a “full 35 minutes before anyone speaks.” Oh no!

We must admit that we then attempted to trade in our Sylvia ticket for another film, and after no success, prepared ourselves for 90 minutes of meditation. Struggling to remember those breathing techniques that we never paid much attention to in yoga class, we om’ed a few times and entered the theater.

After the jump: who's Sylvia? Is she the lady in the picture above?

SFist Wendy, contributing.

We did find City of Sylvia very relaxing, in spite of the fact that we spent most of the film feeling like a voyeur. But we were a voyeur without any consequences. For the next hour and a half, we followed an anonymous, very persistent young man in his quest to find his long lost love, by the name of – you guessed it -- Sylvia.

And when we say “persistent,” we mean persistent. We followed this man as he surreptitiously (and at times creepily) observed and drew all kinds of beautiful women at Strasbourg cafes during the course of his search for Sylvia. We then followed him through the streets of Strasbourg for what felt like ages when he mistakenly pursued a woman he believed to be Sylvia, intimidating her to the point where she circled the city endlessly in an effort to lose him, and even resorted to hiding in closed stores along her path. Nevertheless, City of Sylvia taught us that sometimes even stalkers can be endearing because once our stalker managed to catch up with not-Sylvia, not-Sylvia smiled and bantered with our stalker somewhat amusingly.

Ultimately, we think it was the snoring next to us – and not the film – that prevented us from achieving full meditative bliss. If you don’t get a chance to check out In the City of Sylvia, perhaps you might want to try a bit of Zen Garden instead.