Sempre aos Domingos

---is what many an adult woman might call the result when a man she loves develops a romantic entanglement with what we call a child (in any case, as in this one, a little girl). Generally presumed to be sexual on its face, such a relationship seldom involves actual sex, but always an emotional intensity which is often, even commonly lacking from the carnal attractions of a man and woman. It is this the grown woman cannot engender, thus she envies the little girl who can. Ironically, the younger female is jealous of the older woman's capacity to possess the man sexually, and has little need nor understanding of the more complex feelings the man might have for her. Needful of both, the man usually ends up with neither, as the battle of the sexes AND the dictates of society practically foreordain.

So it is with Hardy Kruger and Patricia Gozzi, star (actually railroad station)-crossed lovers in Sundays and Cybele. Kruger served as a fighter pilot in the French air force in Indo China (Vietnam), and was wounded and traumatized in a crash in which a little Asian girl was killed. Gozzi as we meet her is being dumped in an orphanage in a Paris suburb by her harried father, who tells her it's only temporary but actually plans to abandon her, a fact which Kruger learns from eavesdropping and a letter. He follows father and daughter to the orphanage from the train station, a regular hangout of his, and notes that the father hurries off before a nun answers the door. Later he goes back, poses as the father to get the girl out on Sunday afternoons, for outings in the local area and, though it is winter and most uninviting a venue in which to form a friendship, in a park. The girl, desperately lonely, goes along with the deception, senses wound and need in the Kruger character matching her own, and they form a strongly symbolic and generally childish friendship.

Alas, Kruger lives with a girlfriend, a nurse, and she is a knockout who knows his history and has taken it upon herself to restore the man she loves to health. Alack, it's no use. Kruger retreats from her, steadily and completely, to his fantasy relationship with the child. He is troubled by dreams and flashbacks, and noises set him off. He begins to frighten the child on the Sunday outings as she divines the extent of his mental problems, so she decides they should be "married." Others in the park and on the street pick up on the liaison, and assume the worst, which sets off a chain of events that turn the "wedding ceremony" into a tragedy.

Sundays and Cybele is one of a long line of international movies that misses the boat in depicting adult/child romantic attachments, tailoring the plot elements to conform with popular notions of both the adult and the child which are at best misguided, and at worst, as in this case, a guarantee of unpleasantness and tragedy. The adult in these films, from Peter Lorre in 'M' to the chimney sweep in Emma's Shadow to the Ian Holm portrayal of Lewis Carroll in Dreamchild to Louis Gossett Jr. in Sudie & Simpson, must either be severely neurotic, a social or racial outcast, mentally retarded or outright psychotic. The child must be unloved and neglected, because how else (or why) could the adult manage to seduce or coerce the child into a relationship? "Just another love story" these tales might really be, but we have a deep need to see them as aberrations distinctly outside the pale, needful of retribution, punishments of both adult and child and, as happened to the Kruger character, needful of being put to death to insure the end of the relationship (or, as happened to Dirk Bogarde in Death In Venice, struck dead by the force of his own perversion and lustful iniquity).

So Sundays and Cybele conforms, and it is to the credit of all concerned in the filming, particularly the 12-year-old Patricia Gozzi and director Serge Bourguignon, that it rises above its imposed cliches and attains the status of something like a bleakly beautiful cinematic experience.

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.

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.

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.

One of the most beautiful cinematic statements against human small-minded prejudiced brutality. Beautifully shot in very crisp black and white. The imagery will definitely remain lodged in viewer's head for ever. It's a triumph of loving kindness and friendship over prejudice and hatred that indeed know no borders and are more or less alike anywhere on this planet. Sad News From A Strange Planet? I can't remember exactly but that was the title of a chillingly brilliant Herman Hesse story. It stems from the same universal human wound: the sadness of what we do and very frequently are as opposed to what we should and could have been in our starry essence.

The France was never more melancholy, never more beautiful. I mourn her loss and I mourn the loss of films that would evoke as much humane and poetic feeling.