Wild Reeds (1994)

This is a genuine and convincing portrayal of how teenagers from different backgrounds facing different problems find their true selves, and how they shape and transform their philosophies of life through the mutually interwoven processes of love, hate, learning, accepting and enlightening.

This is a story on how purity and love will transcend across very different people and help them become awake to what they are and what they long for when facing the real world. A beautiful masterpiece that would move you without doing something "big". The 4 lead characters delivered convincing and promising performances, each making them very likable people without glorifying, stereotyping or idolising any ideology.

All in all, a highly recommended beautiful, genuine and poetic gem.

Fmovies: Director Techine once again has made a beautiful movie, this time concerning a group of teenage friends in southern France in the early 1960's. Techine uses the Algerian war as a catalyst for the interaction between the 4 friends. As the movie unfolds, each friend discovers how they're involved with one another, in dramatizatons that the French are so good at. Techine makes good use of the idyllic, pastoral French Pyrenee countryside to compliment the personal dramas unfolding in it. You can almost smell and feel the summertime around you. A touchingly-done coming-of-age film for all ages, not just teens. So successful was the pairing of Rideau and Bouchez that they went on to make several other movies together, one of which was directed by Gael Morel, one of the stars in this movie as well.

How do teenagers grow-up? Andre Techine's camera gives us a cool and respectful view into their emotions. Elodie Bouchez, playing sixteen-year-old Maite, in particular, projects emotion with a quiet dignity. It is remarkable how much is going on while the film seems so quiet. Maybe it is the durability of French countryside that calms the children and us.

The children realistically explore their budding sexuality with all dimensions treated in a straightforward and sensitive manner. The children await the results of their baccalaureate exam, the culmination of French High School education and the key to their professional lives. The natural developmental and educational issues that teenagers face are compounded by the turbulence of the times. And what turbulence surrounds these children! A violent, unpopular, and un-winable war to retain colonial ownership of Algeria strikes directly into this small French village as one child looses his brother and another his homeland. The latter plans bloody revenge against those whom he believes betrayed France until he realizes that Maite, a girl he loves, would be his target. Maite's mother is overwhelmed by guild and institutionalized by fear that her lack of action may have led to the brother's death.

Oh, and there is some great American rock and roll that somehow fits in; it must be that enduring French countryside.

Wild Reeds fmovies. I absolutely adore this movie. When I first saw it, I loved it because I could identify with the lead gay character, but I have seen it since then, and i love it now for its portrayal of the complexity of adolescence life. This is by no means part of the American teen melodrama genre. It deals with everything from homosexuality to mental illness to war to racism to feminism to communism. It has a deep political, psychological, and emotional message. I urge you to see this movie.

I liked the movie even if I was left with the feeling that there was no real end to it (a common thing in French movies). It was superbly acted by four young comedians perfectly cast. The relations between them are ambiguous. Still, more depth could have been given to their characters and the story.

Nevertheless, there is an overall subtlety to the movie, something that makes it light even if the topics are not always light (Francois discovers he is gay and have some problems dealing with it, Henri is a pied noir in France at the end of the Algeria war and is in a delicate situation, not speaking about Serge who loses his brother to that same war and Maite who is somewhat oppressed by her mother who is a die hard communist militant).

It was very refreshing to see. You need to be familiar with the history of Algeria war and the tensions of that time though to fully follow. A film I would recommend to many people.

This is Techine's masterpiece and it is doubtful whether he will ever top it. It is a flawless, poetic film (no chain-smoking brain surgeons here, as in 'My Favorite Season'), and the only one in existence that deals (among many other themes)with budding homosexuality in an adolescent with such class and empathy. My favorite scene is when Techine refuses to offer any dialogue and lets the scene hang when Mrs.Alvarez meets the wife of Prof.Morelli who's been sitting in the car during Morelli's lunch with her (Mrs.Alvarez). I will not explain any further, you will have to see for yourself; great films are meant to seen and reseen as many times as it takes to erase the memory of mediocre ones.