Rating: 
Summary: I would've loved it if I'd not seen the US version's trailer
Review: This is the original Norwegian version of a film remade in America, by the same director, no less, about a boyfriend who becomes obsessed after his girlfriend vanishes right from under his nose at a gas station.Because I wanted to see the original after seeing the trailer for the American version and hearing the original had a far better ending, I bought the Criterion DVD of this and watched it. The ending probably would've shocked me more if I hadn't seen the trailer for the American version, which gave the closing plot twist away. I've never been more angry at my own culture in my life. If you want to see this, don't even bother watching the trailer for the other movie, which starred Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland. This surprise ending would've chilled me to the bone ... if I'd not already seen Kiefer Sutherland live through it in the trailer.
Rating: 
Summary: best version
Review: This is the original version of this movie and by far the best. The american version is a disgrace the way they completely change the ending thus changing the entire context of the movie. Only the Europeans have the guts to do this movie with such a brutal, realistic ending. Worth every penny and should be mandatory viewing for anyone who had to sit through the american drivel.
Rating:
Summary: An Brilliant Film
Review: This moving has everything a good film needs; suspense, intrugue, human relationship, and a great ending. Although the ending is not in the traditional Hollywood style, this amazing Dutch film will leave you pondering the characters' motives and questioning their insight. A Dutch man spends three years looking for his lost love, Saskia, and not even a new romance can stop him from doing what he must to confront the abducter and the gruesome truth. A smart movie.
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Summary: A great suspense thriller!
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
The Vanishing is based on a novel called called "The Golden Egg" by Tim Krabbé. The film titled "Spoorloos" in the Netherlands is probably one of the best suspense films ever to come out of the Netherlands. The popularity was high enough for there to be an American remake of the film released in 1993 starring Jeff Bridges.
Having not seen the remake, it is hard to compare, but I plan to watch (and possible review) the remake upon its DVD release next month.
The film is about a young French couple on a vacation in Holland. When at a gas station, the girl disapears and the man goes searching for her. He learns from eyewitnesses that she was driven off by another man. Convinced that she was abducted, he relentlessy starts searching for her and the kidnapper. Three years later, he recieves a letter from the kidnapper offering to tell him what he did to her.
The suspense of the film is excellent and has great elements later imitated in other films. Notably, "Breakdown" and "Ransom."
The DVD only has a theatrical trailer for a special feature but it still is a great film to watch.
Rating:
Summary: What does it mean to disappear?
Review: This week I've seen two movies back-to-back that were, in one form or another, meditations on the disappearance of a person. The first was "La Femme Nikita," the kinetic and thoughtful French film (from Luc Besson of "The Fifth Element," et al.) about a street thug who is remodeled into a government assassin. She is "disappeared" at the start of the film, with the death of her old self; the whole movie is a journey towards her disappearing a second time, under circumstances that would be unfair to reveal if you have not seen it. "The Vanishing" was the second film. On the surface of it, "The Vanishing" is almost pedestrian. It tells a simple story, embellished with little or no directorial bombasticity, but one which has implications that are so dark and ominous they stay with the audience long after the film has ended. Somehow it manages to generate terrible suspense almost out of thin air, using a story in which every card seems to be right on the table for our inspection. A Dutch couple are driving through France on a vacation. It's a lovely day. They stop at a gas station to fill up, grab a drink, stretch their legs. The husband steps over to buy beer, and when he returns his wife has simply vanished. The ultimate domestic nightmare, whether the subject is one of your children or your wife or maybe even your parents: "She was just standing over there a minute ago..." -- but she's not there now, is she? And that makes all the difference. The whole movie builds its energy around that feeling. She was just over there a moment ago, and maybe if we ask enough people she will reappear. Maybe if I search long enough and hard enough she will be returned to me. Maybe if I put out the word someone else will find her -- That's more or less the train of thought that motivates the husband, and he spends three years of his life searching desperately for her. And then, one fine day, he is contacted by her kidnapper. He's a round-faced, ordinary-looking fellow who doesn't seem to be the "type" -- if there is such a thing -- to abduct or kill anyone. He's got a family of his own, for sakes; how could he even consider doing something this sick? But we know that he's responsible, and we're not asked to place bets on either side -- we are simply invited to watch and see what happens. He has a haunting monologue about the time he jumped from a balcony, just to prove that he had free will, when he felt that others did not. So much of the film, I realize now, centers around this feeling of "If I only did this..." -- that furtive, desperate feeling that so many of us get when something slips through our fingers. "The Vanishing" embodies that and provides it to us in the form of a character who says, in essence, "All right -- you can have her back. But you need to follow me." The most astonishing thing about this remarkably chilling little movie has to do with its director, George Sluizer, who was invited to remake the film in English a year later. He did, but in doing so he jettisoned the original ending and substituted in a more conventional Hollywood conclusion. This isn't simply a matter of bas taste vs. good; this is a matter of logic. The original ending, bleak as it was, was the only possible ending for a story like this. Everything else falls short. The ending in the remake does nothing to expand upon or refine the logic presented the first time around; it's just not possible. The worst of the irony lay in that Sluizer apparently prefers the remake to the original. To that end, I'm grateful that the Criterion Collection has seen fit to reissue the original "Vanishing" in an edition that does justice to its look. The original is a masterpiece. The remake is a travesty.
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Summary: A Study in Psychological Terror
Review: This, the original The Vanishing (please, please, pass over the dumbed down 1993 US version by same director) is without doubt one of the most quietly chilling films of all time. Based on the novel The Golden Egg by Tim Krabbe, this beautifully constructed little thriller has a glossily calm, ultimately misleading, veneer around its bleak icy heart. The casting is astounding, especially Donnadieu as the mild mannered, outwardly benign, existential sociopath Lemorne (Jeff Bridges merely mugged his way through his later role). Here we have true, dastardly intellect of an equal to that of Dr.Hannibal Lecter. The story itself is a study in efficiency. Two young lovers whilst touring France stop off at a gas station. Saskia goes into the store for some refreshments, Rex waits for her outside. Saskia never returns. Over the next three years Rex becomes obsessed by the disappearance of his lover. What happened to Saskia? The fractured time structure preserves this central premise right up until the film's final few frames (while the remake chose to unfold the story in strict chronology, thus removing all that movie's sense of mystery and tension). The answer that Rex seeks is one of those powerful cinema moments that are impossible to forget. Utterly bloodless yet profoundly disturbing. This DVD has little to offer in the region of extras(Come on Criterion, where are you when we need you?; is the Full Screen version (which no true film buff should accept); has irremovable subtitles burned into the film-stock, and the picture quality is decidedly grainy with more than its fair share of detectable artifacts. That said, I still urge you to buy this superb movie.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent foreign psychological thriller
Review: WARNING!!! Be VERY CAREFUL when reading other reviews here - some of your fellow Amazonians have given away an important plot twist that will diminish your enjoyment viewing this film. I will not do that here.
This excellent psychological thriller is about two men. One of them is obsessed over the disappearance of his girlfriend at a gas station when they were on a road trip together. Was she kidnapped? Murdered? Or did she just leave him? He has to know at any cost. Years pass, he gets a new girlfriend, and obviously no longer loves the one that disappeared, but his obsession has only grown over time. He hangs "missing" posters around town and goes on TV begging to know what happened to the missing woman.
The other man is a mild-mannered husband and father, the kind of guy that might live next door to your house in the suburbs. After doing something very good as a young man, he develops an obsession of his own - he wants to see if he is also capable of doing something equally evil.
The stories of these two men intersect, and, in a way, each holds the key to the other's obsession.
Watching this film is not effortless - it has subtitles and lots of flashbacks. One thing that helps is that whenever the film focuses on the time around the woman's disappearance, someone has a radio on and is listening to coverage of the Tour de France (a 21-day bike race, for those of you unfamiliar with Lance Armstrong).
In the buildup to the climax, all questions are gradually answered and the movie leaves us with everything resolved in a very cool way.
The movie has some great literary devices. Early in the film, a creepy incident in a tunnel sets the tone and becomes a metaphor for something important later in the film.
One very cool thing about this film is how terrifying it is, without resorting to gimmicks, special effects, gore, or foreboding violin music. The director really pulls off a minor miracle. And you think you know who the bad guy is early in the film, and you may be right, yet the suspense is still quite compelling.
The same director was hired by Hollywood and paid a lot of money to create a sanitized remake. Avoid it. This version is the real deal.
Rating:
Summary: Truly terrifying
Review: Without graphic violence, this is the most disturbing film I have seen in a long time. I stayed up late watching it, then couldn't sleep for hours afterwards. It disturbed me all the next day. I again renewed my admonitions to my kids to never talk to strangers, and don't, for any reason, get into a stranger's car. You'll understand once you've seen this movie. It is terrifying without any blood or guts. As one reviewer above said, the scariest part is that there are kidnappers like the one in this film out there.
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