WILD REEDS Movie Review

Les Roseaux Sauvages

Set in the early 1960s at the end of the French war in Algeria, Wild Reeds is a complex, richly textured coming-of-age story about three friends in a French boarding school. François (Gael Morel) is just coming to the realization that he likes boys, and finds himself attracted to the working-class Serge (Stephane Rideau). Serge, however, is developing feelings for Maite (Elodie Bouchez), a young girl who's a friend of François. This would all be troublesome enough, but into the mix steps steps a young, angry, Algerian-born boy (Frederic Gorny) whose rage over the colonialist attitudes of the French permeates everything in his life, including his romantic entanglements. Director André Téchiné pulls off something of a miracle in simply juggling these characters’ relationships in a convincing, involving manner, but he goes further. In its surprising, gentle way, Wild Reeds becomes a quietly powerful political document as well, demonstrating the far-reaching effects of oppression and repression on the psyches of young people whose emotions are in flux, and whose impressionable personalities are still being formed. Successful on just about every level, this is one of the most remarkable French films of the 1990s.

NEXT STOP … The Disenchanted, Ma Saison Préférée, Hate (La Haine)

1994 110m/C FR Gael Morel, Stephane Rideau, Elodie Bouchez, Frederic Gorny, Michele Moretti; D: Andre Techine; W: Gilles Taurand, Olivier Massart, Andre Techine; C: Jeanne Lapoirie. Cesar Awards ‘95: Best Director (Techine), Best Film, Best Writing; Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards ‘95: Best Foreign Film; National Society of Film Critics Awards ‘95: Best Foreign Film. VHS FXL