Greek writer/director Penny Panayotopoulou looks through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy who must learn to grieve the death of his father.

But don't open that vein just yet...

Far from the overblown Aristotelian tragedy you might expect, "Hard Goodbyes" is an enchanting and sometimes wryly amusing coming-of-age story that pays tribute to the resilience of youthful spirit.

Elias (George Karayannis) is growing up in Athens in 1969. He idolises his father, a travelling salesman who is often away from home - leaving his mother resentful, and his elder brother determinedly sullen.

When he is killed in a car accident, Elias simply cannot conceive of it. He clings to the parting promise his father made to him: that he will be home in time to watch the Americans land on the moon.

Until then, Elias retreats into his imagination where he keeps his father alive.

The most revealing game involves writing postcards to his senile grandmother, signing off as his father to regale her with fanciful tales from the sales circuit. But as the moon landing draws closer, Elias must fall back to earth.

"Hard Goodbyes" is a lovingly observed elegy to lost innocence, conveying the emotional complexity of bereavement with the naiveté of a child's perceptions.

There is no wistful gazing, or swelling string section, just an eloquent script, Panayotopoulou's respectfully unobtrusive camera and a compelling performance by the cherubic Karayannis.

He carries the film on his small shoulders with grace and poise, managing to be vividly expressive without lapsing into cutesy affectation.

Although the film opens on an uncertain footing - like a pedestrian kitchen-sink drama - it transcends the banal via the realm of childish fantasy.

All at once sad and seductive, unsophisticated and acutely mindful, "Hard Goodbyes" is a welcome departure from the artifice of the melodramatic.

In Greek with subtitles.