Sibila

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.

Hello to all the other lovers of this stupendously beautiful film, wherever you may be in the world. This is not a review as such, other than to say that "Sundays and Cybele" is without doubt the most exquisite, heartbreaking, sublime, delicate, moving and transcendental movie ever created. The purpose of this 'post' is to let you all know that, way down-under here in Melbourne, Australia, I am the fortunate owner of a 16mm cinemas-cope print of this absolute masterpiece. My email address is displayed above. You are welcome to email me personally. If there is ever a possibility that you could get to beautiful Melbourne, I would be proud and delighted to screen the film for you. I myself have resisted the temptation to acquire the film on video...that would seem only to trivialize it, by reducing it to the same size (& therefore stature) as television programs. It is a film to be enjoyed on the big screen and I am doubly fortunate, because there is a small cinema here in Melbourne, seating about 50, which I hire out on those occasions when I can't wait another day to see the film. At the present rate, I screen it about 4 or 5 times a year, sometimes just with myself and 1 other, sometimes with an invited audience of 15 or 20. If at any time any of you readers of this communication would like to take the trouble to journey to Melbourne, Australia, I would gladly run the movie for you, at no cost to you. When I meet you, I will also proudly show you Hardy Kruger's autograph to me, written on an original A4 size poster for the film, which, as a reckless teenager, I stole from its display case on the final day of its big screen season here in Melbourne (in 1964). 14 years later, in 1978, I was lucky enough to meet Hardy when he came to Australia to promote a film he made here ("Storm Boy"). And guess what he said to me when I unrolled the poster and asked if he would sign it? "Ah, my favorite film!!". I am like many of you...I have been haunted, inspired, intoxicated, transported in ecstasy, plunged into the deepest of despair by that extraordinary film ever since. It is an unforgettable encounter with great beauty. Let me know if you can come here to see it. We'll have a wonderful evening. Peter Byrne, Australia.

I loved this movie so much that my husband and I held our small wedding lunch at the Cabassud restaurant in Ville d'Avray, on one of the two lakes painted so often by Corot and featured prominently in the film. Several years later, when my daughter married, we held a much grander wedding party for her in the same place, attended by many members of the French film colony. It happened to be the evening of the annual Ville d'Avray festival, and quite unexpectedly a procession of people carrying torches appeared out of the night to march around the lake. The wedding was as magical as the film that inspired it. Sadly, I think the film has been mostly forgotten in the United States, but one that can inspire so much romance should be revisited.

Forty-five years after this movie was made, it remains the most affecting movie I have ever seen. Story, script, acting, cinematography, music -- all are sublime. I keep praying this film will be released on DVD so that more people can experience its beauty and power. Hardy Kruger, playing a traumatized war veteran, and Patricia Gozzi, playing a preternaturally sensitive abandoned child, create unique and unforgettable characters. All the supporting players are perfectly true. Sundays and Cybele is unconventional enough to put off some viewers, but for those looking for poetry, mystery and magic woven with exquisite subtlety, this film is not to be missed.

It is a terrible pity that this wonderful film is not on DVD. Alas, had Serge Bourgoinon gone on to make more films of equal quality it would be remembered alongside "Jules and Jim" instead of being just a footnote. The earlier poster who noted that it is precisely because he and Patricia Gozzi were meteors who cooled quickly that this film is forgotten was absolutely right.

Another point is the haunting Maurice Jarre "We're Home" theme. So much of his later soundtrack music was bombastic that is astonishing to find a simple, poignant melody used here to evoke the tenderness, beauty, and vulnerability of the world that these two are able to create in the park.