Oct 2
International Film Forum: QUAND ON A 17 ANS
With Being 17, the great French writer-director André Téchiné returns to the subject matter of his masterpiece Wild Reeds, a 1994 feature about the sexual awakening of a handful of teenagers in the rural southwest of France during the Algerian war, and a landmark in the representation of gay youth in French cinema. In this new film, the time is the present and the setting the majestic landscape of the Pyrenees.
Seventeen-year-old Damien lives alone with his mother, a doctor, while his father is deployed overseas with the French army. At school, he is a good student but an outsider. He is frequently bullied by Thomas, a biracial boy who must commute several hours a day from his adoptive family’s remote farm high in the mountains. When Damien’s mother meets Thomas through an emergency house-call to his mother, she discovers the hardships the boy must face to go to school and eventually invites him to move in with her family to be close to the classroom. The relationship between Damien and Thomas only gets worse and the two boys soon come to blows. Yet as both their families face major upheavals, Damien realizes he is in love with Thomas.
With Being 17, Téchiné has made his best film in years, returning to his winning mix of subtly observed naturalism and narrative developments worthy of the great melodramas to give us another memorable depiction of the trials and triumphs of coming of age and coming out.
DIRECTOR
André Téchiné