City of Women begins with the image of a train about to enter a tunnel, followed by a medium shot of the protagonist, Snaporaz, dozing off inside a train compartment next to a window. The darkness of the compartment suggests that the train is now inside the tunnel. We cut to a close-up of a woman wearing sunglasses, the image of Snaporaz dozing off reflected and doubled in each one of the glasses’ lenses. The close-up of her face is so extreme that her glasses take up most of the on-screen space. The camera dollies in to concentrate even more on the image of the man reflected in the lenses. This shot would seem to establish Snaporaz as the object of the woman's gaze. The following shot shows Snaporaz still sleeping, though this time the position of the camera is frontal; in the previous reverse shot, the axis between the woman and Snaporaz was slightly decentred, as if the woman was sitting further from the window. There is sudden light – presumably the train has now exited the tunnel – and Snaporaz wakes up. One may also interpret this waking up as the beginning of the dream that structures the film. We cut to a shot of the woman's boots. The camera tilts upwards to her face and we are teased into wondering whether it is Snaporaz, now awake, who is looking at her. The camera's position is not frontal any more, but further to the left of where Snaporaz is sitting. The tilting movement could initially be interpreted as an attempt to fetishise the woman's body from a male point of view, but because of the shift in the axis of action Snaporaz cannot possibly own the gaze. As he wakes up, Snaporaz puts on his glasses. He starts looking at the woman rather insistently. At this point, one may wonder whether the man is finally taking control of the gaze. The woman first looks at the window and then responds to Snaporaz's look (Fig. 2.1). A frontal medium shot repositions Snaporaz as the object of her look, whilst the following one – a close-up of the woman's face – again denies the man a point of view.