I just saw this movie again for the first time since its release, and the memories I had were confirmed both in good and bad. Jerry Schatzberg is best remembered for "the Panic in Needle Park" and "the Scarecrow", two sensitive and hyperrealistic drama classics about the America of the 1970's. But this movie belongs to the Holocaust centered genre that thrived around 1990, and most of it has a very European feel.

It's likely that Schatzberg has been inspired by Louis Malle's "Goodbye Children" made two years earlier, as the plot and the atmosphere have much in common. There are two elements that stand out. The first is the thorough reconstruction of the everyday life in Germany at the time of Hitler's takeover. And the second is the subtle depiction of the friendship between two college boys in a tense and stiff environment. You get immediately captivated, and the two young actors deliver flawless performances. The soundtrack is an earworm and the gym class scene is a highlight.

However this is all in the flashback part, and there seems to be two movies interwoven, each of very unequal quality. By comparison, the parts involving Jason Robards are lacklustre and feel very off key with the rest. His performance gives an unpleasant impression, out of touch with the teenage character he impersonates as an old man. The excellence of the central narrative makes the movie still worth watching, but it is a pity that the whole was spoiled by this discrepancy. .

This movie involves around two male teenagers. They spend most of their time together. They barely interact with any other classmates. It is a sweet boyhood friendship movie, but is it also hinting at a homosexual relationship? There are so many other classmates that the newcomer could have picked, he picked this particular one.

Generally speaking, this is a good movie. You won't even notice when it comes to an end. It seems to be so sudden.

Obviously deeply felt by both writer and director, immaculately designed on what seems to be a lavish budget by veteran Alexander Trauner (who appears early on playing the caretaker) and photographed in widescreen suffused in a nostalgiac glow by cameraman Bruno De Keyzer. The leisurely pace at which 'Reunion' unfolds conveys something of the gradualness with which the appalling reality overwhelms its characters, although the slow-burning first hour is disrupted by jarringly emphatic black & white inserts to keep reminding the audience of the calamity about to strike (as if they needed such nudging). Konradin's credulous willingness to give a demagogic snake-oil salesman like Hitler the benefit of the doubt - "He really impressed me. He is totally sincere. He has such... he has true passion. I think he can save our country. He is our only hope." - however remains depressingly familiar today.

But for the final, very abrupt, 'surprise' ending to work, the audience is assumed not to be able to recognise the ferrety face of Roland Freisler, occasionally seen although never identified by name (and ironically - as played by Roland Schäfer looking remarkably like John Malkovich in heavy eye-liner - relatively restrained compared to the actual bellowing maniac preserved for posterity in newsreels). And would it really have taken over forty years and a trip all the way back to the very school in Stuttgart were they were originally pupils for Henry to only now learn Konradin's fate?