Saturday, April 18, 2015
Foursome
The last film in a foursome set.
http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/techine4film.php>Les Roseaux Sauvages / Wild Reeds 1994
Familiar themes of André Téchiné. Four young people come together one summer then depart each others lives. An French/Algerian kid who will be going back home, a young woman,an ardent communist, who is trying to decide how to relate to men, a gay boy who is on the cusp of making his life decision and a "proletarian" kid who is involved with all of them.
It is beautifully done and the cinematography is splendid.
It says in the review that it was made as a television movie but ended so well that it was scooped up for distribution as a film.
While Téchiné is sometimes though of as a gay writer director it is only because all of his films include the gay experience one way or another. In that way it is an inclusive approach. Not making the gay characters sort of "professionally" gay which sometimes occurs in well meaning features but as including them just a bit more often than the average experience and making them a critical part of social change not just that connected with gayness. In short, they are people who happen to be gay.
Like me. They have a life which encompasses their sexuality but does not depend on it.
