Brief Reunion

Saw the genre-bending BRIEF REUNION at THE QUAD CINEMA in NYC. What I liked best and which most of the crew of critics completely missed in their rush to apply niche keywords to this first feature-length effort by John Daschbach is the great skill with which the director puts his characters through their paces in the fractured unraveling of an enigmatic and complex mystery (The 70s work of English directors Nicolas Roeg and John Schlesinger come to mind). Daschbach also places his people in a lush atmosphere of lakes, country houses and green meadows at summer’s height. The landscapes he chooses, vividly photographed by Joseph Foley, virtually shimmer in spots. The locations undertake as much a role in the course of the story as the actors. They bely the chicanery, evasion, mayhem and murder that ultimately occurs while at the same time foretelling it. In this way BRIEF REUNION works against expectation and more importantly, convention. The film rightly avoids the boilerplate smash cut storytelling so prevalent these days and takes its time. The characters breathe and the effect is that tension, foreboding and turmoil slowly build. Our discomfort grows incrementally with the characters on the screen. At film’s end we are surprised to find out whom we have and haven’t been rooting for.

This movie made me think a lot. There are many interesting aspects to it. This time of social networking, the rekindling of old friendships and old flames, the accumulation of small lies, characters making impulsive and bad choices -- the way real people so often do, etc. I even thought about the movie after a week or so, which is pretty unusual for me. The pace can be slow at times, so you might need some patience, but it's worth keeping with it because there are some surprising twists. It is such an interesting study of human psychology. The actors were all great, but I was really impressed the lead actor, Joel de la Fuente who embodied someone reserved on the surface but with a lot going on underneath.