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MovieMail's Review
David Parkinson finds this beautiful and heartbreaking tale of innocent love to be a lost gem.
Given that it was the first feature from the nouvelle vague to be nominated, and then to win, an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1963 Oscars, it is staggering that Serge Bourguignon’s Sundays and Cybèle is not better known. With incredible central performances from Hardy Krüger and 12 year-old Patricia Gozzi, it is a truly touching tale of two stricken souls finding solace and innocent love in each other’s companionship.
Based on Bernard Eschassériaux’s novel, Les Dimanches de Ville d’Avray, the story follows Krüger’s war-scarred bomber pilot Pierre, who has returned from a tour of duty in Indo-China and retreated into semi-seclusion in Paris in the hope of coming to terms with accidentally killing a Vietnamese girl on crash-landing his plane. One evening when he is spending time at the railway station, he sees a young girl pleading with her father not to take her to the orphanage that will be her new home. A few days later, the chance presents itself for Pierre to pose as her parent, which he does. She gets to spend her Sundays outside of the confines of the orphanage, he finds satisfaction in making her happy. Both of them discover a trusting, innocent love in their time together and begin to put their scarred pasts behind them. Inevitably though, their make-believe world is threatened when a neighbour spots them together and word spreads among Pierre’s acquaintances about his illicit relationship - along with doubt regarding his motives.
In many ways, this is the sentimental, though never mawkish, equivalent to Louis Malle’s madcap romp, Zazie dans le Métro (1960). Indeed, there is considerable charm in Krüger and Gozzi’s interaction, with Gozzi having a more intuitive understanding of the man’s pain than his own nurse girlfriend. The sequence in which Krüger risks his neck to get Gozzi a church weathervane as a Christmas present is particularly heart-rending, with Henri Decaë’s discreet monochrome naturalism counterpointed by Maurice Jarre’s mellifluent score.
A sensitive tale of the redemptive possibilities of love, this is genuinely a lost gem that will be welcomed by aficionados of French cinema and all lovers of good film.
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.
Oscar winner in 1962 for Best Foreign Language Film.
