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February 04, 2006
Sundays and Cybele, my friend Peter Bryne, an invitation
Over the last few weeks, I've mentioned my stories up at Mad Hatters Review and told you about the reading that Peter Bryne did for me. Meeting Peter came out of the story being accepted at Mad Hatters because they have the audio component and my partner Hal said: I know this wonderful man who comes to St Andrews market and loves our food. He's in radio and has a great voice. And this is how my friendship started with Peter. Anyway, the other day, he sent me the following email with an invitation. It contains the most divine tale. Read on:
Girija and Hal..... lemme, as they say, tell you a little story.
Back in the 1960's, as a callow teenage student, I went along to what was then Melbourne's only arthouse movie theatre (decades before the term 'arthouse' was coined, that's how long ago it was), the Australia Twin on Collins Street. There I chanced to see a little black and white French film called "Sundays and Cybele", which starred Hardy Kruger and some other people I didn't know. Turned out it was the most exquisite, beautiful, glorious, shattering, sublime, heartbreaking, ennobling, fabulous, delightful, uplifting movie ever made!!!! My opinion had been justified about 12 months before, actually, when the film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. In the course of the month it screened, I saw it many times. The usherettes (yes, that's how long ago it was) actually got to know me. So obsessed did I become over this wonderful film, I actually stole the colour poster from the display case outside the theatre on its final screening. And, apart from my memories, for many years that was all I had to remind me of "Sundays and Cybele". It popped up on late night TV a couple of times, but I was usually too distressed to watch it, trivialised as it was by being shrunk down to the size of a TV screen and being punctuated by ads.
In the 1970s, however, I discovered a Melbourne company called Nostalgia Films, whose brief was to send away overseas and obtain prints of films, if you were crazy enough to spend the money. I was. So I became the proud owner of a 16mm Cinemascope print of the most resplendent and divine film ever made. Every so often, I would borrow a friend's 16mm projector, scrounge an anamorphic lens from somewhere or other, and show the film, usually on my living room wall. Not the ideal way to see it (noisy with the projector right behind you and you had to get up every 30-40 minutes to change the reel), but quite a memorable occasion on those times when it all came together for myself and a handful of guests.
Before I leave the 1970s (and there is a purpose in my telling you all this), just one more anecdote from the decade. In 1978, the star of "Sundays and Cybele", Hardy Kruger himself, came to Australia to make another film, and appeared as a guest on the Don Lane Show on Channel 9 to promote it. Don and I worked together on radio at that time, and my future wife Rhonda worked for him at the television station, so was able to wangle an entree to the Green Room beforehand, where I cornered the aforementioned Mr. Kruger, produced the poster and asked him if he would sign it. The conversation went - Kruger: "Ah, my favourite film!" Byrne: "Mine too!!". Anyway, I now have, as one of my most precious souvenirs, a framed, autographed poster of "Sundays and Cybele". It is hanging right behind me now, as a matter of fact.
Cut to the 1980s. Second daughter about to be born. Rhonda and I torn between 2 names for her and thought we'd wait til she was born before naming her either Skye Cybele or Cybele Skye (Rhonda loved the film too).
Cut to a couple of years ago. I interviewed a gentleman named Ross Campbell on my radio program about a little cinema in Fitzroy, the Erwin Rado Cinema, where, from time to time, people hire out the theatre for film screenings. The theatre is used mainly by the Melbourne International Film Festival as a kind of screening/preview facility, but little film societies occasionally hire it out to run, for example, old silent film classics, or maybe a Garbo festival, or maybe a festival of Italian films. Turns out this theatre has, apart from the delightful and charming Ross Campbell running it, a 16mm cinemascope projector!!! Bingo!!!!!!! Imagine my delight. Ross has joined the 3 reels together for me and now runs the film for me from time to time in the Erwin Rado Cinema, in perfect conditions. It's a delightful little theatre, with the most marvellous atmosphere, and seats about 30-40 in absolute comfort and privacy. Seeing "Sundays and Cybele" there is an awesome experience (if you can stand me sobbing all the way through it). In fact, Skye Cybele Byrne saw the film for the first time there with just me, just the 2 of us. Wow!!!!!
On a website (IMDB - the International Movie Data Base), where I was once trawling for snippets of information I might not have known about my all-time fave film, I once posted a review, along with an invitation to any reader anywhere on the planet who knew the film and who would like to see it again, to come to Melbourne and I would run it for them. One man from Williamstown responded, and I have actually screened it for him, along with a handful of other invited guests. It was a very special night - he hadn't seen the film for 40 years! I've also had emails from France, Belgium, South Africa and other places, all from people who love and remember the film, all wishing they could get out to Melbourne to see it, but unable to for one reason or another. Recently, however, I received an email from another Cybele! She has never seen the film after which she was named, and her mother, who named her for it, hasn't seen it since the early 1960s. Best part? They live in Sydney!!!
Best part for Hal and Girija? Cybele and her mother Elissa are coming down to Melbourne in early February to see the film together. Also present will be Skye Cybele and Nic, along with a handful of my other friends. I am hoping that you guys will be amongst the select little group on the evening of Sunday, February 5, from 6pm. The plan is to see the film and then adjourn to the greatest restaurant on the plant (apart from the Vegie Curry Man van at St. A's Market), the remarkable Wabi Sabi Salon in Smith Street, Collingwood, just around the corner from the cinema, where I have taken a block booking of the rear garden for dinner. Wabi Sabi is truly the most wonderful place...I eat there at least 3, sometimes 6 times a week. Sophia (Aussie girl) and her boyfriend Tomoya (young Japanese god) are just the greatest humanoids and have become good friends. The garden area out back, sublime in itself, seats only about 16, so numbers are limited, but that will just contribute to the specialness of the occasion.
Love,
Peter Byrne (and Skye Cybele, who, if she were here and not at Apollo Bay on holidays, would be in the next room screaming "Make them come, make them come". I can hear her now.)
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All of this is history now. The invitation has been accepted and Sunday night we'll be having an experience to tell our children's children.
Posted by girija at February 4, 2006 11:49 PM