DVD: Some Photos In the City of Sylvia (Guerín, 2007)

Essentially the same film as In the City of Sylvia, this seems like the sort of film that Guerin would have settled for if film didn’t exist and everyone told stories visually via Powerpoint presentations. But, it still has an impact, which is proof enough that In the City of Sylvia isn’t perfect only because of its stunning lensing and sound design. The most offputting thing about Some Photos, though, is its lack of a sound track. It’s the same beef I had with Hotel Monterrey (though that film needed much more than sound to make me want to see it again), and I only feel a little bit naive with my opinion that a film needs sound to be successful. Even if it’s a low static buzz running through the whole thing. I want something to listen to, and I’d rather not count on the ambient noises in my apartment or studio, or whatever I’m playing in iTunes, as the sonic accompaniment to a film.

So, the film is photos and text. There are a few things that he does with this format though that are nice, like intermittently showing a photo, and following it up with a nearly identical photo (that he took right after the previous one). It was a brief nod to the difference between a photo montage and a motion picture. It gave me the feeling of watching choppy video, which always makes me tense. The same feeling as when I realize that the video has no sound, and I have to spend 5 minutes researching to make sure that the film has no sound and that my DVD isn’t faulty, I momentarily feel like my DVD is skipping. Also, he would take many similar photos and fade them quickly in and out over each other, which gave the image a ghostly effect.

There are differences in the stories told in Some Photos and In the City beside it’s photo presentation. It simultaneously feels like a more in-depth version of the filmed Sylvia and a different, parallel story to that one. For one, the protagonist has been searching for Sylvia for 22 years instead of 6. I’m not sure if Sylvia is based on Guerin’s actual experience, but I had the impression that Some Photos was Guerin telling the ‘true’ story that In the City was based on. I believe that the photos were taken by Guerin himself, but I’m not sure if he took them 22 years ago, or if he took them for this project. Either way, there are a lot of photos here. The screen is rarely consumed by the same photo for more than a couple of seconds, and often there are multiple photos that play over one second. The film is over an hour, so, lots of photos. I found the text intrusive, as it was placed in the center of the image, in fairly large, white, italic font. I don’t see why there couldn’t have been a voiceover, but the written story was begging for someone to be reading it aloud.

This is a nice companion to In the City, but I don’t think it functions well as it’s own feature, as it feels like a DVD supplement more than anything else, which is not what it is being sold as. It would be a shame for someone to see this supposed feature before In the City as I think it would diminish the impact of the guy’s hunt for Sylvia (also the fact that I didn’t know that he was had been hunting for this girl for 6 years until more than halfway through the film). It does expands the myth of Sylvia and ideas of the ‘male gaze,’ and it makes for a nice, quiet after-viewing cool down for the superior In the City of Sylvia.