User Reviews

The Holocaust is so shocking that perhaps a more appropriate way to comprehend its import is to focus on the time just before it happened. Cabaret is one such film, however its highly entertaining music detracts attention from the story characters. A better fit is the 1989 movie Reunion, which lavishly illustrates the threat to Germany's beautiful scenery, intellectual heritage, and setting for a rare and idyllic friendship.

In a 1932 German boy's school, Hans meets new student Konradin. Gradually becoming best friends, they admit having no other friends. Yes, as Hans is Jewish and Konradin a Count, others might be deterred from approaching them, but the pair possesses a mutual chemistry that exclusively draws each other.

Exquisite actors convincingly depict the depth of their friendship as they walk to school, camp overnight at breathtaking sites, swim, eat, and endlessly converse on numerous subjects. A fascinating pleasure to behold, you feel as if you are participating with them.

But your participation forces you to experience the negative consequences impacting their lives. Several children, neighbors of Hans, die in a fire. Hans is angry at God and believes that if He exists, He is a monster for letting innocents burn to death. We recognize this as merely a taste of the forthcoming Holocaust.

Friction arises when Hans learns that his friend's parents are supporters of Hitler. Konradin himself is being drawn into the movement though he rationalizes that an exception will be made for good Jews like Hans. Hans knows better. As his parents send him to America, the two friends awkwardly depart company. Thus ironically Hans escapes the Nazis while the fate of his former buddy remains unknown to him. Hans spends decades unable to forget, finally returning to Germany seeking a reunion.

I discovered months ago the 1971 Reunion novella crafted by English painter Fred Uhlman, published in 1977 with Arthur Koestler's introduction. I then acquired the film available only on VHS. Let me quote from the book's opening paragraphs, "I can remember the day and the hour when I first set my eyes on this boy who was to be the source of my greatest happiness and of my greatest despair." The book and movie are clearly complementary.

In both vehicles, the account abruptly ends after Hans determines Konradin's whereabouts. Emotionally, you will find yourself left in a vacuum, literally gasping for air. A haunting epitaph for the Holocaust, a haunting epitaph for the idyllic friendship in Reunion.

This is a beautiful film that deals with a tragic story set during the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. Christien Anhalt (in the role of Hans Strauss) and Samuel West (in the role of Conradin von Lohenburg) are very well cast in the lead roles. Jason Robards (in the role of the adult Hans Strauss) is also very good. The period is also very well created. Hans Strauss is a teenage German Jew who befriends Conradin von Lohenburg at secondary school. The two become very close in spite of the increasing barriers that the rise of nazism and anti-semitism put between their friendship. The parents of Strauss manage to send him to the United States to live with relatives. Tragically though they themselves are unable to leave Germany and commit suicide as their form of escape. Years later the adult Hans Strauss returns to Germany as he has always wondered what happened to his friend Conradin von Lohenburg. Along the way he finds under the surface that anti-semitism still exists. Tragically rather than being reunited with his friend Conradin, he finds that Conradin has been executed due to his involvement in a plot to kill Hitler. I would recommend it to others. It is a wonderful film.

It's ironic that a statement about Sigmund Freud opens up the paths of friendship for a young Jewish teenager and a Christian teen in the early days of Nazi Germany which will end with the sudden departure of the young Christien Anholt as threats arise which makes his safety at risk. "Funny, you don't look Jewish", a young German socialite tells him, then understanding why he hasn't joined the Hitler youth. He's perplexed, especially when his friend tells him that his anti-Semitic mother has badmouthed him, the hurt of the rejection of the only friend he has ever known truly impacting him.

The part of the film that takes place in Nazi Germany surrounds the reunion of the two friends, starting with Jason Robards as the older Jewish man now living in New York visiting Germany in the present day, and seeing sites he hasn't seen since he was a teenager. The film utilizes newsreel footage of Germany during the 1930's, showing both the cultural and political climates, and there are also some visits to the countryside where they talk about how beautiful it is, and indeed, outside of the city where the Nazis are dominant, it is.

Another memorable segment has the two young men in a beer garden that is reminiscent of the scene in "Cabaret" where a Hitler youth sings "Tomorrow Belongs to Me". Scenes in their classroom are quite scary with the Nazi propaganda spilled with vile hatred. Through the performances of Anholt as the young Robards and Samuel West as his friend, you really get to see the buildup of a nation and continent filled with horrors. A few scenes had me shaking. This definitely deserves to be seen for the perspective it gives, and definitely as one of the best modern films about the personal side of the war, one that most people have never heard of.