Sundays and Cybele (1962)

Waste of time

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

A beautiful film, in terms of both images and story. This very sweet - but never sticky -and slightly disturbing story of a platonic 'love affair' between a psychologically damaged, almost child-like ex-soldier and an emotionally abandoned 12 year old girl is deeply moving, honest, and just creepy enough in terms of in nascent sexuality hovering around the edges of the relationship to keep us from feeling too at ease. Shot in gorgeous black and white, with great use of shadows and silhouette, the images are both beautiful and mysterious -- as is the film's central relationship. Hardy Kruger is excellent as the amnesiac soldier who has the feeling he's done something awful, but doesn't know what, or how to atone for it (we know more, having seen a dream- like flashback of his war experiences to open the film). He is lovable and sad, but we sense there's always a danger this man could lose control and cause damage without meaning to. And Patricia Gozzi is remarkable as the young girl, bringing an almost frightening amount of pain to this hurt character, and never feeling like a kid faking it for a film. There's a complex honesty to her performance combining hurt, innocent joy, emotional need, the first flickers of adult sensuality and manipulativeness, and yet a child's open heart that any seasoned actor would envy. The film does telegraph where its headed more than once, but somehow it doesn't matter very much. It's the humanity of the telling rather than any surprise twist that makes the film work so well. We root for this odd pair to be able to maintain their bond in the face of a grown up world that doesn't understand how much these two damaged souls need each other and is, as one character puts it, afraid of any love that doesn't fit into nice neat categories. Beautifully made and haunting, it won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1962.

A childlike amnesiac (Hardy Kruger), unable to repair his life after a wartime plane crash, befriends a 12-year-old girl abandoned by her father. They enjoy blissful Sundays together, aside from his periodic attacks of irrationality, but outsiders begin to distrust the relationship, leading to tragedy. This intensely moving, truly original drama – with increasingly spare comic touches – confronts the cynicism, horror and alienation of the adult world, Bourguignon ingeniously shifting styles to contrast the stifling mundanity of Kruger's apartment – and his unconnected life – with the tranquil idyll of the park where he and Cybele indulge in transcendent fantasy. It isn't that Kruger doesn't have love in his adult life, just that he wants to shrink from the world that forced him to gun down an innocent child. He, young Patricia Gozzi and Nicole Courcel – as the protagonist's conflicted girlfriend Madeleine – are terrific, while the film boasts some of the most striking black-and-white photography you'll ever see: an endlessly creative variety of shots drawing you inexorably in to the heartbreaking story.

Just remembered the title: "Sunday and Cybel".This film had a major haunting impact upon my life.(Boston 1962)What a beautiful story and "Sunday and Cybel" needs to be preserved on DVD.The childlike trust, and human bond that develops between two "wounded human beings" without a hint of inappropriate sexuality, needs to be seen again and again.I was deeply pleased, that others have found this film as lovely as I did. It warms my heart to see others recognize such tender humanity between a child and an adult."David and Lisa" has a similar sense of love between damaged Souls, out of darkness into the light of emotional "healing".Being a family psychotherapist, only restores my faith in the psyche to find love in a cruel world of distrusting authorities who only know how to kill flies with hammers, and destroy people they do not understand.Bravo to the perfect cast, direct and writers, with brilliant cinematographer, to enrich the story into a rare masterpiece. VSS

Saw this film three times when it was first released in the sixties - the last time walking two miles in pouring rain and skipping study for a college math final the next day. I have not seen a film before or since that has had as powerful an effect on me. If you want to be moved and shaken at the beauty and tragedy of the human condition, see this film. Unfortunately, the video quality is poor, but see it anyway.