(Cybèle ou les dimanches de ville d'Avray)
Directed by Serge Bourguignon
106 minutes
In French with English subtitles

Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign film in 1962, the history of this film is amazing. Why has it been forgotten about? Well it seems that it has been deleted from film history for a number of reasons, but perhaps one of those reasons is also its controversial subject matter which is probably more incendiary today than ever before.

The story starts with the French Vietnam war, where the main character, Pierre, is psychologically scarred after he remembers the face of a young Vietnamese girl who he killed during a bombing raid. Returning to France, he lives like a spaced-out vegetable until he meets a young orphan girl who has been dumped at a boarding school. Posing as her father, Pierre contrives to meet the girl every Sunday and takes her to the park. He is clearly attracted to Cybele because of his sense of guilt, but also because of her natural magnetism. She is quite adult-like, and he is quite child-like. And although nothing explicit is shown on screen, it is clear that their underlying connection is also romantic. For example, Cybele has no qualms about stating that she intends to marry him. But when people see them together during their weekly meetings in the park, rumors start which lead to tragic results.

Living as we do in a world traumatized by instances of pedophilia (and the media hype given to this taboo subject), it is easier in our culture to understand the moralistic angle of Lolita than that of Sundays and Cybèle. In the end, the film is about intolerance and its ability to destroy intimate relationships when they don’t adhere to convention. A perfect example of the lyricism that European cinema was once able to attain, and the performance by 12-year-old Patricia Gozzi is absolutely spellbinding.

One critic's thoughts: "In 1962, the New York Times called it a masterpiece, and it won the Oscar for best foreign film that year. If you can't see it any other way, there is one person who loves the film so much that he will rent a movie theatre and screen it for you - if you don't mind a trip to Melbourne. Sundays and Cybele (Les dimanches de Ville d'Avray) is worth tracking down, however you manage. The film treats delicately of the love between a psychically wounded man, who is capable of violent as well as tender impulses, and a schoolgirl who has been abandoned by her family. The viewer, along with the film's male protagonist, is initiated by the girl into a world of pagan magic created by her imagination, and which is of course in conflict with the world outside."