"Les Roseaux Sauvage" a.k.a. "Wild Reeds" is the 1995 award winning film by André Téchiné. It's set in a small southern French village in the summer of 1962, and tells the story of 4 almost, post-adolescent "friends".
Maïté (Élodie Bouchez) is the daughter of a highly respected local English teacher and along with her mother operates the local Communist political headquarters...a rather quite place, but their ideology sets them apart in the community. Henri (Frédéric Gorny) is the fatherless son of a French-Algerian expatriate who was brutally murder in the war between France and the O.A.S. backed Algerian liberationist. He holds to Fascist beliefs and wears his anger on his sleeve. Serge (Stéphane Rideau) is the son of itinerant Italian laborers. His older brother has enlisted in the French army as a way of opening the door to his family's immigration to France, but fate intervenes, and his brother is killed in the war in Algeria. Serge is left with a bouquet of conflicting emotions/options. And finally, there is François (Gaël Morel) a young man who is coming to terms with his homosexual orientation. A desire that challenges his life-long friendship with Maïte, finds expression in a one off encounter with Serge, and remains unrequited if better comprehended through his friendship with Henri.
This is a really beautifully conceived and executed film about four friends whose lives entwine with and impact one another in a certain place, at a certain time. In the end, you understand not only the essence of the lives of the friends, but also the time and place.
I first saw this film years ago...I'll guess 1995 or 96. It since went out of print, and only now has been re-issued. It's a great movie, well worth the effort to find.
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