Wild Reeds

Wild Reeds (Les Roseaux sauvages, 1994) is André Téchiné's coming-of-age drama, available to watch online on iFILM. Southwestern France, 1962, the last months of the Algerian War.

Four teenagers cross paths at a boarding school. François realizes he wants a male classmate and struggles to name the feeling. Farm boy Serge thinks more about the land and a brother killed in the war. Maïté, daughter of a communist teacher, loves François with nothing returned. And new arrival Henri, a pied-noir from Algeria, brings the fury of a refugee who lost his home. Adult politics presses down on the kids, yet Téchiné keeps his camera on small things — a river, bicycles, the silence between two boys by the water.

The film took the César for Best Film and remains one of French cinema's tenderest looks at first desire. Élodie Bouchez, Gaël Morel, Stéphane Rideau and Frédéric Gorny play it without a trace of performance, as if you wandered into someone else's summer. If slow, autobiographical work is your thing, settle in. Stream Wild Reeds (1994) online on iFILM.