by Miguel E. Rodriguez
DIRECTOR: George Sluizer
CAST: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 96% Fresh
PLOT: A young couple, Rex and Saskia, stop at a service station during a road trip. Saskia vanishes without a trace, prompting a years-long search by Rex…while an unassuming family man monitors his progress.
[WARNING: This review contains unavoidable spoilers. If you have any plans to see this movie, trust me…stop reading now.]
I went into The Vanishing absolutely cold. I knew nothing about it aside from the name of the director, the bare outlines of the plot (a young woman vanishes while on vacation), and the fact it was a critically acclaimed foreign film, remade in America with Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland, which I never saw because it was, quote, “laughable, stupid and crude” (Roger Ebert).
With absolutely no gore, no unnecessary side plots, and no clichéd final chase between the killer and the cops where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, director George Sluizer has crafted one of the most compelling, creepiest abduction films I’ve ever seen. By not showing the actual abduction when it happens, by focusing on the boyfriend’s frantic attempts to track her down immediately afterwards, and by abruptly shifting gears twice in the first hour, the viewer is kept constantly off balance (in a good way). If she was abducted, how did the kidnapper accomplish his task in broad daylight? WAS it even an abduction? We get a good look at the person who most likely committed the crime, but his process looks almost comic…how did he pull it off?
We first meet Rex and Saskia as they’re driving to France to do some cycling. After Saskia relates a recurring nightmare to Rex (she dreams of being trapped inside a golden egg floating through space), there is an early crisis when their car runs out of gas in the middle of a long tunnel. We get an early, incisive look at their relationship when Rex elects to walk back for gas, while Saskia stays behind frantically looking for a flashlight she insists they will need. Later, at a crowded service station, they kiss and make up.
This scene at the service station looks entirely mundane at first, but it is interrupted by a sequence in which we are shown the man who pretty clearly is about to commit a kidnapping. When we cut back to Rex and Saskia, their interactions become charged with tension. They talk and tease and kiss, while we are suddenly hyper-aware of their surroundings. Director Sluizer fills the background with extras, and we start scrutinizing them to see if any of them might be the kidnapper. Or perhaps there will be a clue later, a Hitchcockian callback which relies on our recall of the crowd scenes. Rex takes a random Polaroid as a blue semi rolls past the lens, obscuring the front of the store. Sluizer’s camera lingers on the semi, and we immediately wonder if there is any significance. (There both is and isn’t.)
The creepy effect of these scenes cannot be overstated. I can easily imagine some people watching this movie and immediately changing their travel habits. Never go into a crowded store alone. Carry mace. If you must separate, stay in touch with your cellphone until you meet up again. Stanley Kubrick knew what he was talking about when he told Sluizer that The Vanishing was the most terrifying movie he’d ever seen.
After Saskia’s disappearance, there are the nominal scenes of Rex searching the store and grounds for her, asking if anyone has seen her, giving her description, and so on. Interestingly, we never get a scene of Rex being interviewed by the police as the day drags on. Looking back on it now, I get the feeling that Sluizer perhaps thought those scenes would be way too familiar for audiences who have sat through any number of police procedurals in the movies and on TV. Better to stay with the matter at hand and keep the story moving.
It’s at this point that the movie makes its first abrupt shift in tone and focus. With no warning, we suddenly spend a good 20-30 minutes, not with Rex’s search, but with the apparently happy family life of the man we got a good look at earlier in the film, the man who appeared to be prepping for a crime. These scenes are even creepier than the earlier scenes at the service station because we are pretty sure this is the kidnapper, but his home life seems stable: a wife, two daughters, a well-paying job as a chemistry teacher, and the financial wherewithal to buy a large farmhouse in the country…where we discover, in an INTENSELY creepy moment, that no neighbors will hear any screaming.
The decision to focus on this man was jarring and disturbing to me, but in that good way achieved only by the best crime thrillers. We get more details about his life and his “preparations” that I won’t spoil here. The film almost seems to have forgotten all about Rex and Saskia; this man is now the primary character. (In fact, this actor gets top billing in the credits). He has the kind of forgettable face and unimposing persona that would fly under anyone’s radar. By showing us the fact that he has two sides to his personality, we come to the uneasy realization that evil could easily lurk behind the cheerful facades of just about anyone we meet. This concept is far more terrifying to me than a slasher wearing a mask.
But The Vanishing has two more tricks up its sleeve. It takes yet another dramatic shift when we abruptly jump forward three years. Saskia is still missing. Rex has a new girlfriend, but he still posts flyers asking for any information on Saskia. He makes appearances on local news programs, pleading for the perpetrator to step forward, promising not to press charges; he just has to know whether Saskia is alive or dead. He craves closure more than anything else. It has consumed him. And…he has received several anonymous postcards from the kidnapper asking to meet in a public place, but whenever Rex arrives, the kidnapper has never shown himself.
This creeped me out even more than I had already been. But the screws get tighter still. At one point, the kidnapper offers Rex a choice: turn me in, in which case you’ll never find out what happened to Saskia, or I show you what happened to her…by going through the same ordeal she did.
This has all SORTS of psychological implications that I don’t feel fully qualified to sort out. I have to wonder about those families and friends who have suffered through the disappearance of a loved one. (I looked up the statistics on missing persons on a whim…they are horribly depressing.) I can only imagine what those people would do to finally get closure on what happened. Would they accept this kidnapper’s offer? Even if it means they might possibly die? What price would they be willing to pay to finally get an answer after years of searching?
I hope I never have to answer that question. Rex goes back and forth in agony before finally making his choice. His decision leads to an ending that was probably inevitable, but which still took me by surprise.
In an interview with the actress who played Saskia (Johanna ter Steege), she states that when the movie was finally released, she was deeply disturbed. She went to George Sluizer and asked him, “What is the point of this movie? What do you achieve by telling this kind of disturbing story? What are you trying to tell the audience?” If I had to answer that question, I would say that the first motive was to make an entertaining crime thriller, which it is. But perhaps there’s also a deeper statement about the banality of evil. One does not have to wear a black hat and twirl his mustache to be the bad guy. Sometimes you just have to blend into the background. The film opens and closes with shots that include a praying mantis, a creature that relies on stealth and speed to capture its prey. The kidnapper in The Vanishing has learned that lesson in spades.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 