A beautiful film, in terms of both images and story. This very sweet - but never sticky -and slightly disturbing story of a platonic 'love affair' between a psychologically damaged, almost child-like ex-soldier and an emotionally abandoned 12 year old girl is deeply moving, honest, and just creepy enough in terms of in nascent sexuality hovering around the edges of the relationship to keep us from feeling too at ease. Shot in gorgeous black and white, with great use of shadows and silhouette, the images are both beautiful and mysterious -- as is the film's central relationship.

Hardy Kruger is excellent as the amnesiac soldier who has the feeling he's done something awful, but doesn't know what, or how to atone for it (we know more, having seen a dream- like flashback of his war experiences to open the film). He is lovable and sad, but we sense there's always a danger this man could lose control and cause damage without meaning to. And Patricia Gozzi is remarkable as the young girl, bringing an almost frightening amount of pain to this hurt character, and never feeling like a kid faking it for a film. There's a complex honesty to her performance combining hurt, innocent joy, emotional need, the first flickers of adult sensuality and manipulativeness, and yet a child's open heart that any seasoned actor would envy.

The film does telegraph where its headed more than once, but somehow it doesn't matter very much. It's the humanity of the telling rather than any surprise twist that makes the film work so well. We root for this odd pair to be able to maintain their bond in the face of a grown up world that doesn't understand how much these two damaged souls need each other and is, as one character puts it, afraid of any love that doesn't fit into nice neat categories. Beautifully made and haunting, it won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1962.

It's taken me a long time to catch up with this outstanding film but it was well worth the wait and I am further indebted - if that is possible - to my good friend in France for making this available to me. The theme of two wounded birds attempting to heal each other is far from new, the theme of adult and child bonding whether sexual or otherwise is, if anything, even older so this movie had a lot to beat and to say it does so hands down is to underrate it. The phrase 'adult and child' evokes anything from Lolita to Le Papillon and everything in between but nothing comes even close to this uniquely beautiful film that is reminiscent in its complex simplicity of Au Hasard, Balthazar and equally unforgettable. The two leads are absolutely SUPERB - and Hardy Kruger is the last person I thought I'd ever say that about - and completely dominate the support, fine though it is. One of its strengths is the way in which Writing, Directing and Acting surmount easily the main stumbling blocks of coincidence and outrageous fortune; consider, what are the chances that one wounded bird (Kruger) would encounter another (Pozzi) at Exactly the right time for both their psyches to respond to the healing elixir in the other or, for that matter, that a father would more or less cheerfully abandon a daughter without either a second thought or a plausible reason and that a second man bearing no resemblance to the biological father would not face even the most basic interrogation when turning up, claiming to be the father, and be allowed to remove her from the care of the nuns Sunday after Sunday. Perhaps paedophilia was just a word in 1964 but whatever the Artists involved in this film, as I have already stated, make us completely forget practicalities/realism and draw us inexorably into THEIR world where the tragic end is equally inexorable. I cannot speak too highly of this magnificent film which I will watch again and again.

One of the most beautiful cinematic statements against human small-minded prejudiced brutality. Beautifully shot in very crisp black and white. The imagery will definitely remain lodged in viewer's head for ever. It's a triumph of loving kindness and friendship over prejudice and hatred that indeed know no borders and are more or less alike anywhere on this planet. Sad News From A Strange Planet? I can't remember exactly but that was the title of a chillingly brilliant Herman Hesse story. It stems from the same universal human wound: the sadness of what we do and very frequently are as opposed to what we should and could have been in our starry essence.

The France was never more melancholy, never more beautiful. I mourn her loss and I mourn the loss of films that would evoke as much humane and poetic feeling.