Attraction and repulsion are often close cousins, especially during that confusing teenage time when hormones rage and sexual longing is mixed with self-loathing. André Téchiné's Being Seventeen captures the contradictions of this age perfectly.

Better than a Hollywood adolescent getting-laid comedy, or a socially-conscious message movie, Being 17 is so lively that watching its characters rushing through their encounters produces a rare sense of discovery.

There's a screwball complication that draws out the class differences between the boys, but their hate-love bonding comes from beating each other up, a two-boy fight club... The brute mix of emotion and sensation suits the confusion of their age.