This is the classic final scene from this classic film...
It grabbed me by the throat the first time I saw it when I was in my teens, and every time since...
If you're not familiar with "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," this scene won't make sense, obviously. (Curiously, it's all in song. Due to being around French-speaking relatives when I was very small, I barely need the subtitles.) Basically, in the late Fifties, Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo had a brief affair before he was sent to Algeria for two years' service in the French army. A baby girl, whom they'd decided to call Francoise, was born while Castelnuovo was gone. Their letters crossed in the mail; they were lost and couldn't find each other. He came back wounded, alone and found Deneuve's mother's notions (umbrellas) shop closed, and Deneuve herself missing. He then married a friend, Madeleine, had a baby boy (Francois) with her and bought a gas station. He's happy; she's not... Deneuve has married a rich guy, who adopted Francoise. Deneuve and Castelnuovo didn't see each other again - until this snowy night in December, 1963, when she pulls into his Esso station for some gas...
He doesn't even want to see his daughter... 
Okay, it's a "chick flick" -- but I still don't "get" this ending. Destroys me.
"The wages of sin is death" - or a living death like this one...
Margaret
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