I was myself surprised to watch and love this movie, although the way of filming and camera shots, angles and story telling, are maybe too much "new wave" for me. Today, the same story, the very same story, would have been shown differently. In short, it is purely late sixties, early seventies, but so delicate, so touching. The scene where Philippe watches his god son sleep, with the camera insisting of Philippe's eyes, is so brilliant, so intense, it thrilled me to the bone. Only for this reason I will keep this feature. I can understand that some audiences see this film as a sort of homosexual, gay oriented movie, but you can also interpret it in a different way. Simple a friendship tale, different from the other ones, and not necessarily gay...Anyway Gérard Blain himself was at least bisexual...I guess his other films as a director must be worth watching.