Wild Reeds (1994) review

Since France is a country that has really mastered the coming-of-age movie - Malle, Rohmer and (especially) Truffaut have produced some unbelievable pictures in that genre - it was hard being really impressed with this, as I wondered how the aforementioned three would have reworked the story so that the young lust aspect actually meshes with the war anxiety. The characters are not as developed as they are, say, in the Doinel series (you could argue that they're somewhat one-dimensional - there's the homosexual, the dumb brother, the feminist/communist and the depressed Algerian). It is miles away from what our country has to offer in this cinematic category - our teens are pop obsessed, contest-construing miscreants - but unsatisfying overall.