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DVD Description
Pilot Hardy Kruger returns to France from the Indochinese War and takes up residence in a small town near Paris, where he becomes friendly with a 12-year-old girl who lives in an orphanage. The nuns assume that Kruger is her father, but people become suspicious of the relationship and mistake Kruger's intentions.
Product Description
Hardy Kruger is a Vietnam war veteran, traumatized after killing a child on a bombing mission, Francoise is an abandoned child he meets. This film is about the trust and bond that develops between these two wounded human beings. This really is something of a lost gem, a powerfully affecting film that is both heartbreaking and sublime.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
"Sundays and Cybele" holds up even after nearly 50 years. I remember seeing it as a very young man and it lodged in my memory as a very touching and moving story of two damaged souls discovering life and love together. Still controversial after all these years, it tells of the older pilot traumatized from bombing an innocent girl in a Vietnamese war and in another time, another place, of a young girl unloved and abandoned by parents and dropped off in a convent in a small French provincial town. Their worlds are shattered. They cling to what it means to be alive and loved. These two strangers come together. They talk. They play. They take meandering walks along a pond, a river. They help to open up each other's feelings of joy and happiness. It is love and light. But perceptions are reality and those around these innocent victims perceive a dark and treacherous motivation in the pilot. They conspire to save the girl, which leads to the inexorable tragic climax. Interesting to revisit the film that was never forgotten, a memory of a haunting, lyrical and tragic story of love, loss, innocence and betrayal. It was as vivid and engrossing now as it was 50 years ago, only the styles have changed.
It left me thinking what it might be like to have an American remake, possibly Brad Pitt playing the Hardy Kruger role, reshaping the black and white images into the light and dark shadows of color. But the original "Sundays and Cybele" will always remain a classic.
It left me thinking what it might be like to have an American remake, possibly Brad Pitt playing the Hardy Kruger role, reshaping the black and white images into the light and dark shadows of color. But the original "Sundays and Cybele" will always remain a classic.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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18 reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Lovely film, lousy print
18 Nov 2001
"Sundays and Cybele" is a beautiful film, sensitively handling the delicate subject of an adult male's love for a young girl. Unfortunately, it's another case of less than pristine elements being used to make a video transfer. As previous reviewers have noted, the widescreen print that's been transfered to video is quite poor, with dull contrast, heavy scratches, and extremely difficult to read subtitles. Amazingly, there is a better transfer available, a fine contrast print with deep grey tones and few scratches, and -get this- new, yellow subtitles! Unfortunately, it's a pan-and-scan version where you end up losing nearly half of the available image, but at least you can read the subtitles with ease. This version has turned up on cable tv over the last few years, but was never on video, as far as I can tell. Why a letterboxed video version hasn't been put together with the same or similar elements, I don't know. Until that happens though, we'll have to make do with what we have. It's a shame this is the case, because "Sundays and Cybele" deserves better.
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
nostalgic, not-so-innocent, beautiful
27 Sep 2005
This is first and foremost an extremely beautiful film. The photography, the composition, the pearly grays, the delicate reflections, the enchanting smile of Patricia Gozzi, her tears, all account for an unforgettable cinematic experience. Very much in the aesthetics of the sixties, following Ingmar Bergman, that was the time of Fellini and Antonioni, the time of glorious B&W.
The story has become somewhat less convincing with the passing of the years, although it remains painful and nostalgic and sweet. It describes the adult-child love relationship of Cybele and Pierre. Here the adult is the child, Pierre (Hardy Kruger), a pilot who suffered war trauma, amnesia and emotional anesthesia, and the child is the adult, the abandoned twelve-year old girl Cybele (Patricia Gozzi), who has grown in the midst of suffering and loneliness, and who behaves as the mature one in this anomalous and defenceless couple.
The tragedy looms in the air from the beginning and closes inexorably on Pierre and Cybele. The beauty of the scenery and the purity of their child love makes the tragedy more unfair and even more tragic. Their little secret refuge, the tiny microcosm the two lovers have built as a bubble to protect themselves from their inmense loneliness and their fear of the unbearable reality, is shattered like a crystal by the base suspicion of the "grown up" world. The end of the movie is almost unbearable in its suffering and its beauty. One cannot but compare with "The Virgin Spring" by Bergman.
It is unfortunate that neither Serge Bourguignon, the director and scriptwriter, nor Patricia Gozzi, were seen again in a film comparable in quality to this lovely 1962 best foreign movie of the year. I saw this movie first when I was a lonely and shy medical student, it never ever abandoned me afterwards, in all its nostalgic pain and tragic splendor.
The story has become somewhat less convincing with the passing of the years, although it remains painful and nostalgic and sweet. It describes the adult-child love relationship of Cybele and Pierre. Here the adult is the child, Pierre (Hardy Kruger), a pilot who suffered war trauma, amnesia and emotional anesthesia, and the child is the adult, the abandoned twelve-year old girl Cybele (Patricia Gozzi), who has grown in the midst of suffering and loneliness, and who behaves as the mature one in this anomalous and defenceless couple.
The tragedy looms in the air from the beginning and closes inexorably on Pierre and Cybele. The beauty of the scenery and the purity of their child love makes the tragedy more unfair and even more tragic. Their little secret refuge, the tiny microcosm the two lovers have built as a bubble to protect themselves from their inmense loneliness and their fear of the unbearable reality, is shattered like a crystal by the base suspicion of the "grown up" world. The end of the movie is almost unbearable in its suffering and its beauty. One cannot but compare with "The Virgin Spring" by Bergman.
It is unfortunate that neither Serge Bourguignon, the director and scriptwriter, nor Patricia Gozzi, were seen again in a film comparable in quality to this lovely 1962 best foreign movie of the year. I saw this movie first when I was a lonely and shy medical student, it never ever abandoned me afterwards, in all its nostalgic pain and tragic splendor.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Shame
17 Aug 2002
This movie is really a masterpiece.? What a Shame it has never been publisshed in DVD. The quality of the available edition is extremely poor
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