Rent Sundays and Cybele (1962)

Sublime - Sundays and Cybele review by BB

This almost forgotten masterpiece is a truly complex and deeply moving film. A difficult subject handled with flair, intelligence and imagination.

Innocence on Borrowed Time - Sundays and Cybele review by griggs

I found Sundays and Cybele while working through the Oscar winners list — the 1963 Best International Feature winner — and it turned out to be one of those quiet surprises that actually earns its prize. What starts off looking simple, even a little suspect in premise, slowly unfolds into something tender, strange, and deeply moving.

Serge Bourguignon’s direction is luminous yet grounded, drifting between dream and realism. Hardy Krüger plays Pierre, a traumatised ex-pilot haunted by war guilt, and Patricia Gozzi is astonishing — direct, natural, and heartbreakingly clear-eyed. Their friendship is innocent, but it’s the adult world’s suspicion that turns it tragic.

Those Sundays together feel like borrowed time — small pockets of grace before the world closes in. It’s more Léon: The Professional than Lolita: less about exploitation, more about two damaged souls trying to feel human again. Troubling, tender, and quietly devastating, Sundays and Cybele lingers like a dream you don’t want to wake from — even though you know it ends in heartbreak.