The Vanishing - Criterion Collection

The Vanishing - Criterion Collection
by George Sluizer

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Actor: Bernadette Le Sach?, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Gwen Eckhaus, Johanna ter Steege
Director: George Sluizer
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Toni Kuhn
Editor: George Sluizer
Producer: George Sluizer
Writer: George Sluizer
Editor: Lin Friedman
Producer: Anne Lordon
Writer: Tim Krabb?
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-09-18
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion

DVD Reviews of The Vanishing - Criterion Collection

DVD Review: blew it with the laughably contrived, hollywood style ending.
Summary: 2 Stars

i actually liked this film up until the stupid ending. as if a man, after finding the killer of his girlfried after a 3 year search, would then wilfully allow himself to be drugged into unconsciousness and be at the mercy of that killer. this is the kind of melodramatic crap that hollywood dumps out it's rear end year after year. i turn to foreign and independent films for intelligence. what i found with this movie was a waste of time.

DVD Review: Psychological thriller, French style
Summary: 4 Stars

The bad guy here seems like a nice guy, sort of, until the film goes on to reveal more and more of his unhinged thinking. Meanwhile, the kidnap victim's boyfriend seems like the crazy one, at first, until the film goes on to reveal his unending quest to find out what happened. This movie is all about the dramatic ending. Everything leads slowy up to the moment the viewer has been waiting for. Suffice to say, it's chilling, even if somewhat expected. Very well done, in a sick way. You won't learn anything from watching this, but you may be hypnotized.

DVD Review: Far superior to the dumbed-down US version
Summary: 5 Stars

I really wish I had seen this one before viewing the dumbed-down American version, where the bad guy gets it and the good one triumphs in the end.
This version is unflinching and honest in its portrayal of the tragedy befalling a man and a woman who are targeted by a sociopathic man. Sometimes good does not win in the end; that seems to be the point made here.
What happens to this couple could have happened to anyone, and the criminal is also a family man whose family has no idea how evil and cunning he really is; these factors make the story even more unnerving.

DVD Review: The Vanishing - Dutch version
Summary: 5 Stars

Super sophisticated thriller by George Sluizer. George is at his absolute best here.....and I should know...he's my Uncle by marriage. George's own dark, sexy persona is reflected in this film as the story of a vanished young woman and her lover, devestated by her loss and determined to discover what happened to her, draws him and the viewer into a series of twists and turns that culminates in a shocking end. Brilliant film that will stay with you for ages. Highly recommended classic.

DVD Review: Motivation
Summary: 4 Stars

I think the key to understanding this movie is to get the motivation of its characters. The mystery centers around specifics (what did the perpetrator do to this woman). But there is an alternate mystery of why he did it and why the boyfriend makes the decisions that he does. I'd classify this film as a mystery and a thriller, as opposed to a horror movie, though I can understand why viewers would be horrified by the actions taking place. I also think we need to question the motivations of the victim, who basically just walks into the crime scene practically begging to be abducted. Consider her actions first: In her supreme innocence and joyous with love, she actually offers to accompany her abductor back to his car to ostensively buy a trinket for her boyfriend. She goes to a car with a stranger, hesitates for a moment, sees a photograph of him with his family, and decides to trust him. Fatal mistake. This man has plotted an abduction of this type for a long time, but was never able to lure an unwitting victim (with the exception of one possible time a few minutes earlier). Here, the victim more or less offers herself. Then consider the abductor: of course he is deceptively normal, otherwise he'd have been jailed years ago as a potential kidnapper. He's tried many times to get his victims into his car, where he overcomes and drugs them. But no one falls for the ruse. Women have a basic presence of mind not to get into a car with a strange man. Saskia's natural defenses have abandoned her in her sleepless and traumatized state (there was a mishap with her and her boyfriend the night before which sets up this scene). Our perpetrator has a job and a nice family, but he's well aware that he's basically insane. He sees this sociopathology as an experimental opportunity--to see how evil he can be and get away with it. Basically, he plots to commit the perfect crime. And he does. Then there's the boyfriend: consumed by guilt and remorse. He will do literally anything to find out exactly what has happened to Saskia. He knows that he will die in the process, I think that is clear. He may be shocked at his fate, but I'm sure he knew he would not come out of his encounter alive.

Description of The Vanishing - Criterion Collection

A young man begins an obsessive search for his girlfriend after she mysteriously disappears during their sunny vacation getaway. His three-year investigation draws the attention of her abductor, a seemingly mild-mannered professor who, in truth, harbors a diabolically clinical and calculating mind. When the kidnapper contacts the man and promises to reveal his lover's fate, The Vanishing unfolds with intense precision, culminating in a genuinely chilling finale that has unnerved audiences around the world.

When a young Dutchman discovers that his girlfriend has gone missing during their return to Holland from a bicycling trip in France, he begins a three-year search that forms the basis of this unsettling psychological thriller from 1988, originally titled Spoorloos. The missing woman's whereabouts remain a mystery, but the film provides an early introduction to her abductor, a seemingly normal family man whose domestic tranquility hides a meticulous, methodical madness. As the despondent husband advertises all over France and Holland for his missing wife, this game of cat-and-mouse escalates into a strategy of psychological horror, revealing certain facts and merely suggesting others to create an intense atmosphere of dread and anticipation. A film that Alfred Hitchcock would certainly have admired, The Vanishing leads to an unforgettable conclusion that's sure to send chills down your spine. Ironically, this film's director, George Sluizer, also made the inferior 1993 American remake starring Kiefer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges. --Jeff Shannon

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