Reunion
2016 · 13m
Directed by Matthew Cassel
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
After more than two years apart, Aboud's wife and children prepare to finally join him in the Netherlands, having known him only through video calls.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a documentary about family reunion—the most sentimental premise imaginable—but Cassel somehow resists the treacle by letting the video-call mediation *be* the story rather than an obstacle to overcome; that's a genuinely weird choice that pays off.
Cassel locates this film in a lineage of intimate documentary portraiture concerned with the texture of waiting and separation, executing with a formal restraint that lets the accumulated small moments of preparation accumulate into something approaching grace.
The decision to keep the family primarily on screens—to treat the video calls not as scenes to be transcended but as the actual fabric of their relationship—is what transforms a straightforward reunion narrative into something that feels both technically constrained and emotionally precise.