Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the lovely, bittersweet 1962 debut feature from Serge Bourguignon straddles the borders of delicate French poetic realism and French New Wave freshness. Hardy Krüger stars as Pierre, a bomber pilot whose tour of duty in Vietnam has left him emotionally and mentally damaged (today he'd be diagnosed with PTSD). Pierre connects with 12-year-old Cybèle (Patricia Gozzi), who's been abandoned by her mother and dumped in a Catholic boarding school by her father. Today it's hard not to see the possible unsavory aspects of a grown, emotionally damaged man secretly spending time with a vulnerable girl who speaks of marrying him someday, especially as Pierre grows more distant from his lover, Madeleine (Nicole Courcel). Certainly some of the characters worry that he may hurt Cybèle, but Bourguignon shows us an innocent kind of second childhood for Pierre and a surrogate big brother/best friend for Cybèle. Henri Dacaë's black-and-white photography is sublime, featuring autumn and winter landscapes full of people bundled up for the outdoors, and Pierre and Cybèle innocently playing in a beautiful but increasingly cold and bare park. A beloved classic of foreign cinema, Criterion presents the film on DVD and Blu-ray in a superb restored edition, with extras including interviews with Bourguignon and the stars, and the director's Palme d'Or–winning 1960 documentary short Le Sourire. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)
Sundays and Cybèle
Criterion, 111 min., in French w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $24.95, Blu-ray: $39.95 Volume 30, Issue 1
Sundays and Cybèle
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