Pierre, a soldier traumatised in Indochina for killing a child, lives in ghost-like existence. Amnesic, detached and distracted, he spends his days at a train station waiting for his love, Madeleine, to come from work. One day he meets a lonely girl interned in a school and plots an ingenious plan to get her to see every Sunday, by pretending to be her father come to take her out. These two figures, abandoned as they are, are perfect for each other.
Serge Bourguignon's Sundays and Cybele is one of those intimate dramas built on almost nothing, so simple and straightforward it is. The movie focuses almost exclusively on Pierre and Cybele, their strolls to the park, and the emotional relief she gives him.
The black-and-white cinematography complements the story perfectly, since Pierre's world is also one of dualisms: life and death, adult corruption and youthful innocence, honesty with Cybele and deception with everyone else.
Hardy Kruger plays Pierre with feeling, looking like a man who lives lost in a world he's cut off from. He has trouble communicating his ideas and expresses himself with facial expressions and his clumsy body movements. Patricia Gozzi plays the 12-year-old Cybele and I wonder why she didn't triumph in film: at a tender age she showed more talent than many adult actors.
Melancholy, serene and introspective, Sundays and Cybele is a drama not to be missed by anyone who enjoys quiet movies built on powerful relationships.
Serge Bourguignon's Sundays and Cybele is one of those intimate dramas built on almost nothing, so simple and straightforward it is. The movie focuses almost exclusively on Pierre and Cybele, their strolls to the park, and the emotional relief she gives him.
The black-and-white cinematography complements the story perfectly, since Pierre's world is also one of dualisms: life and death, adult corruption and youthful innocence, honesty with Cybele and deception with everyone else.
Hardy Kruger plays Pierre with feeling, looking like a man who lives lost in a world he's cut off from. He has trouble communicating his ideas and expresses himself with facial expressions and his clumsy body movements. Patricia Gozzi plays the 12-year-old Cybele and I wonder why she didn't triumph in film: at a tender age she showed more talent than many adult actors.
Melancholy, serene and introspective, Sundays and Cybele is a drama not to be missed by anyone who enjoys quiet movies built on powerful relationships.