The Vanishing (Spoorloos) (1988)

This is another of the many movies I first learned of from Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, where Mark Kermode described it as, "A great psychological chiller that has become famous for, kind of, having one of the most heart-stopping climaxes... of the last twenty years." The basic idea, about a man whose girlfriend who disappears without a trace at a gas station and he tries to find out what happened to her, sounded intriguing, and I can also remember being interested with how both Kermode and Kim Newman describe the villain, with the former calling him "boringly normal." The moment they actually chose was, naturally, the aforementioned ending, which was pretty damn horrific, even for somebody like me, who's not claustrophobic, and I could only imagine the effect it would have on someone was. So, like just about every movie featured on that special, I had to see The Vanishing, and I finally did many years later, when I found a used copy of the old Criterion Collection DVD at McKay's. As blasphemous as this is going to sound, though, I wasn't that crazy about it upon that first viewing; in fact, I rather disliked it. I thought the movie was going to spend more time focusing on the man's obsession with finding his girlfriend, rather than focus so much on the villain, even though I knew from the special that you know who he is almost from the beginning, and I also wasn't expecting the story to be told in a non-linear manner. As it went on, I lost patience with it more and more until, by the time it was over, I didn't care anymore. I then stuffed that DVD away and didn't watch it again until October of 2021, when I was preparing for this series of reviews. My opinion of it didn't shift much upon that belated second viewing, although I had more of an advantage in knowing what I was in for (somewhat, anyway; it had been a long time), but after my most recent viewing, while it's still not a movie I absolutely love or will likely watch again following this review, I can say that I do appreciate it. The Vanishing is a good movie, one that's well-made and directed, has a good cast who give solid performances, an ending that's still terrifying, even when you know it's coming, and has a very real, relatable, and frightening scenario at its core.

Rex Hofman and Saskia Wagter are a Dutch couple on vacation in France who, though happy enough, aren't without their issues. At one point in their trip, their car runs out of gas in a tunnel, causing an argument between them, with the short-tempered and impatient Rex insisting that they must get out of the tunnel and go for some more gas on foot, while the frightened Saskia fumbles around the car for a flashlight, prompting Rex to leave without her. When he returns, Rex gets a scare when Saskia is not in the car, but they reunite on the other side of the tunnel and eventually make up. After stopping and spending some time at a gas station, they prepare to head on, but Saskia goes inside to get something to drink. Time passes and she doesn't return, prompting Rex to search for her. He finds no sign of her and the employees at the gas station are of little help. Three years pass, but Rex has become more and more obsessed with finding out what happened to Saskia, going as far as to put out more missing persons fliers with her picture. He's also been receiving invitations to meet her abductor near the gas station, only for the writer to never show. Little does he know that it's part of a sadistic game being played by Raymond Lemorne, a French chemistry professor who has a wife and two kids but who is also a dangerous sociopath. Ever since he saved a young girl from drowning in a river, Raymond has been obsessed with seeing whether or not his daughter's admiration for his heroism has any meaning by committing the most horrific crime imaginable. After much planning, practice runs, and various failed attempts, Saskia ultimately became the target of his ghastly experiment. Now, after a public plea from Rex to come forward, Raymond appears to him privately and offers to disclose what happened to Saskia, something Rex says he's determined to learn, no matter the costs.

Based on a book by Dutch journalist Tim Krabbe titled The Golden Egg (said title does have significance to the story), The Vanishing was directed by George Sluizer, who'd been working in the film industry since 1958. He started out as a documentary filmmaker, with his first film being 1960's Hold Back the Sea, and he didn't make a fictional film until 1972, with the Brazilian-shot Joao and the Knife. Right before The Vanishing, he'd adapted another book by Krabbe into the 1985 film, Red Desert Penitentiary, and while Krabbe was doing research for The Golden Egg, he asked Sluizer for help, as he'd been born in France; Sluizer, in turn, after reading the early manuscripts, vied to buy the film rights to the book. The two of them then worked together on the screenplay, before Sluizer opted to finish the adaptation himself, much to Krabbe's consternation. Sluizer also had a hand in the editing, having done so on various documentary shorts of his in the past, though this would be the only feature film on which that were the case. After The Vanishing, which Stanley Kubrick called the scariest movie he'd ever seen, Sluizer's directing career became much more hit and miss. While his 1992 film, Utz, was well-received, he followed that up with the much-maligned American remake of The Vanishing (which I have not seen at this point but I've always heard is really bad) and Crimetime, a critically-despised thriller starring Stephen Baldwin and Pete Postlethwaite. His last film was a 2010 documentary called Homeland, although in 2012, his aborted 1993 film Dark Blood, which was abandoned due to River Phoenix's untimely death, was completed and shown at various film festivals. Sluizer died in 2014 at the age of 82.

When we first meet Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) as he's on a trip to France with his girlfriend, Saskia, it quickly becomes clear that, while he does care for her, he has a tendency to get impatient with her rash and impulsive personality. For one, he doesn't take her recurring nightmare, where she's trapped in a golden egg, eternally floating through space, seriously, and gets aggravated when, after they run out of gas in a tunnel, she sees the headlights of an oncoming cargo truck as being akin to it. The two of them then get into an argument about whose fault it is that they're in this predicament, and when Saskia frantically searches for a flashlight in the backseat, Rex, after being unable to convince her to get out and come with him to get some more gas, goes without her, ignoring her cries not to leave her. When he returns some time later, he finds her missing from the car, only to reunite with her on the opposite side of the tunnel. They stop at a gas station afterward and Rex apologizes for what happened, telling her that he loves her and that he really felt it when she was calling for him. They make up and, after their car is filled up, they spend some time in a small recreation area, where they bury two coins at the base of a small tree as a symbol of their love and that they will never be separated. Saskia also has Rex pledge to never abandon her and he says he won't, but when they shake afterward, an uncertain nonverbal exchange between them suggests he can't really make that promise. She then goes off to get some drinks for the drive ahead and Rex loiters around the car, taking a random Polaroid and drawing a cute message on it to Saskia. But, as the minutes tick by and she doesn't return, Rex, becoming worried, walks into the station and finds no sign of her. When he walks back out, waits a little while longer, and she still doesn't show up, he becomes frantic and searches every inch of the place, as well as talks with the employees. Learning she was seen leaving with another man just fifteen minutes ago, he becomes obsessed with seeking out every little speck of a clue, insisting there are tiny glimpses of Saskia and her possible abductor in the Polaroid he took and that the man's fingerprints should be on any coins he used to pay for coffee, suggesting they search the cash register. He also argues with the station manager, who advises him to wait until the next day to call the police, saying they would likely just think it was a domestic quarrel.

Jump to three years later and Rex, despite having a new lover, is consumed with learning what happened to Saskia, going as far as to put up fliers to have her case reopened. He's also been getting postcards from the kidnapper, telling him to meet up at a spot near the gas station where Saskia disappeared. Most recently, it's at the Cafe Des Beaux Arts in Nimes, but, like before, he never shows up, leaving Rex at a table by himself, wondering if he may be watching him from

somewhere nearby. Rex is sure the man is building up courage to show himself because he may have seen him that day, and also admits that he's scared if, one day, the postcards stop coming or the abductor dies, leaving him with no way of knowing. Lieneke, Rex's new girlfriend, accompanies him on his newest search but tries to impress upon him that the man is just playing with him and he must move on with his life. That's when Rex tells her something very disquieting: "If Saskia were here

now, I'd still go with you. But if it were possible to really choose, I'd rather be at that gas station, three years ago." Lieneke almost leaves him over this, and while Rex catches her and stops her, they travel on to Bois Vieux, where he and Saskia were going that day. When they reach a cottage once owned by Saskia, Rex, after imagining what it would have been like had the two of them made it, lies down in the grass near the cottage and falls asleep. He has a dream similar to Saskia's recurring nightmare and wakes up, screaming her name. This

prompts Rex to make a public appeal, appearing on a television special, along with footage of a square in Arles shot by the police, hoping that someone will recognize the abductor in the crowd. Also, hoping Saskia's abductor is watching, says, "I want to meet you. I want to know what happened to my friend. To know that, I'm prepared to do anything. I don't hate you. I don't hate anything. But I need to know. I need to know." This appeal does generate some tips but nothing works out and Lieneke, unable to cope with Rex's obsession anymore, leaves him. And then, he's approached by Raymond Lemorne.

After, very feebly, beating on Raymond when he confirms he is who he claims to be, Rex takes him up on his offer to travel with him to France to learn what became of Saskia. On the way, he continually tries to obtain evidence against him but is foiled at every turn, learning how dangerously intelligent this man is. Raymond also tells him why he does what he does, how he rehearsed and planned out the eventual evil act he would commit, and that it was pure circumstance that Saskia happened to be

the one he ultimately targeted. They even spend a little bit of down time together and trade opinions on their respective native languages. In the end, Raymond takes Rex to the gas station where he abducted Saskia and offers him a coffee laced with a sleeping pill, saying that, to truly know, he must experience the same thing she did. Rex, naturally, is reluctant to do so, and makes one last attempt to go to the police with what he thinks is a clue, but Raymond manages to prey on his burning curiosity to know and, when Rex digs up the two coins he

and Saskia buried at the base of the tree, he drinks the coffee. When he awakens, he learns the horrific truth of her ultimate fate: buried alive, with no one around to hear or help, and with only his cigarette lighter as a temporary means of illumination before it goes out, his cries for help turning into hysterical laughter.

Like her boyfriend, Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) does have some personality issues that tend to cause friction between the two of them. Mainly, she can be rather rash, single-minded, and impulsive, especially when she's frightened, which is what happens when her and Rex's car runs out of gas in the middle of the tunnel in France. She panics and, ignoring his telling her that they need to get out of the tunnel and go for some extra gas, scrambles around in the backseat to find a flashlight. This causes an argument, with Saskia rashly telling Rex to go on, which he does, and she then quickly changes her tune, yelling at him not to leave her alone. After he returns and gets a scare when he finds her gone, they reunite on the other side of the tunnel. Arriving at a gas station, Saskia admits to Rex that she hated him during that time she was alone in the tunnel, but the two of them quickly make up and spend a little bit of time at the recreation area near the station. There, Saskia gives Rex a cigarette lighter, which she says he can use to light up her own cigarettes, and also asks that he let her drive them on to Bois Vieux, which would be her first time driving on the highway. He gives her the car keys, which she comments are ugly-looking, and also has him swear that he'll never abandon her. He swears and they shake hands on it, but there's an exchange between them that seems to indicate they know he won't be able to keep that promise. She then goes to buy a drink for the trip and disappears. Later, when Rex is with Raymond Lemorne, both he and the audience are told what became of Saskia. She went back into the station just as Raymond had aborted an attempt to abduct a woman when he got caught up in a sneezing fit and almost chloroformed himself. They two of them encountered each other, made small-talk, and Saskia, noting Raymond's keychain, which had a large "R" on it, asked if she could buy it off him. Raymond then claimed to be a salesman for them and lured her out to his car, where he claimed to have a box full of them. Once he enticed her into the passenger seat, he chloroformed and drove off with her, with Rex himself eventually experiencing her ultimate, horrific fate.

Lieneke (Gwen Eckhaus), Rex's girlfriend three years after Saskia's disappearance, is much more calm and collected than she was, but she quickly grows tired of his obsession with what became of her. As Rex waits and waits at the Cafe Des Beaux Arts in Nimes for Saskia's abductor to show himself like he said he would, Lieneke tries to tell him the man is merely toying with him and he must get on with his life. That's when Rex tells her that, if he had the choice, he'd rather be back at the gas station when Saskia disappeared, prompting her to get up and leave. Rex chases after her and does manage to make her come back with him, but as the film goes on, Lieneke sees more and more just how deep his obsession runs. She witnesses him having the dream similar to Saskia's recurring nightmare and also sees a video recording of the TV special he participated in to try to get more interest in the case, after which she leaves him. Before she goes, she tells him that she hopes he'll find the answer he's looking for, but also tells him her own laws of relationship: "'Getting over the separation lasts half the time the relationship did.' So, I'll be over it in about four months." Rex tries to suggest they might've had a chance if Saskia hadn't existed, but Lieneke tells him, "But there was and is a Saskia. Understand that." She then leaves, saying she'll call him, though she never gets the chance.

The Vanishing is not a whodunit, as you first see the villain, Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), less than ten minutes in and he immediately comes off as sketchy when you see him slip on a fake arm cast and sling in his car, before intently watching Rex and Saskia when they pull into the gas station. But it's only after Saskia disappears that you learn just who Raymond is and what he's capable of. It turns out he's a successful chemistry professor with a wife and two daughters and that they live in a nice home in Nimes. He's also a rather jolly and charismatic family man but, on the whole, is a guy who, if you saw him on the street, you wouldn't look at him twice. Unbeknownst to his family and colleagues, though, he's been planning to commit a truly horrific deed. And when I say "planning," I mean to the smallest detail. He's bought a farmhouse out in the middle of the country, experiments to see if any screams can be heard from there, uses his chemistry skills to figure how long a certain amount of chloroform would render a person unconscious, and rehearses various ways to entice victims into his car and how best to incapacitate them. Chillingly, he involves his unsuspecting family in his preparations, first by taking them out to the farmhouse and having them scream to see how far the sound travels, and then by practicing his method of reaching across the passenger seat, locking the door, and drugging his victims on his daughter, only putting her in a light headlock and pinching her nose instead. And he has no major reaction to both his daughter and wife's suspicions that he bought the farmhouse because he's having an affair, making jokes about his wife's suspicions and telling her, "The house at St. Coeme is like a passion. Because it's perfect, it has become a passion. You start with an idea in your head, and you take a step, and then a second. Soon, you realize you're up to your neck in something intense, but that doesn't matter. You keep at it for the sheer pleasure of it. For the pure satisfaction it might bring you."

Indeed, Raymond is revealed to have continued his planning for a very long time, further honing and perfecting it, likely because it did give him pleasure and satisfaction. He attempted to learn enough English to broaden the scope of potential victims, and was also smart enough to abandon one method because frustration due it not working was giving him high blood pressure. Ironically, it was a birthday present from his family, a scrapbook of pictures from various moments in his life, that gave

him the idea of pretending to have a broken arm and prey on the sympathy of others. He attempted this method at the gas station on the day Rex and Saskia drove up. Initially, he was interested in Saskia, but when that didn't work out at first, he focused on another young woman and almost managed to get her into his car. But, in a rather funny twist of fate, he got into a sneezing fit and ended up reflexively putting the handkerchief with the chloroform to his face, prompting him to abandon everything and run inside to wash it off. He even had to laugh at himself when it was all said and done. After that is when he ran into Saskia again, leading him to take the chance when she inquired about his keychain (another birthday present) and abduct her.

Three years after the abduction, when Rex is still looking for Saskia, Raymond begins playing a sadistic game of cat-and-mouse with him, sending him postcards saying he'll meet up with him at various spots within 62 miles of the gas station, only to never show up. When he and Lieneke are at the Cafe Des Beaux Arts, Raymond watches Rex from the balcony of his home and then sits at the table behind them just before Lieneke storms off and Rex chases after her. Following Rex's public

appeal, Raymond finally introduces himself to him and tells him he'll learn what happened to Saskia if he accompanies him back to France. Despite Rex flying off the handle and beating on him (again, his punches and kicks are absolutely pathetic), Raymond still allows him to come with him. Along the way, he tells Rex he has no real evidence against him, as well as that there will be people searching for him should he disappear, and in the end, when he offers Rex the drugged coffee, he

preys on his insecurity and burning desire to know what happened. Rex tells him he has no desire to punish him and that he won't tell anyone, but Raymond tells him, "I've put myself in your shoes. In fact, I believe that you don't want to punish me. But I'm not so certain I should, understand? I believe you, but I must pretend that I don't. So, drink. It's truly the only way." When Rex throws the coffee in his face and tries to escape with his car keys, Raymond, calmly refilling the cup, tells him, "Can you be absolutely sure? That's

where your problem lies. You must keep in mind the possibility that there's no proof against me. That could spoil all your chances... I've been analyzing what goes in your head for the last three years. You can leave. Even go to the police with the keys. But then, you'll never know what happened to Miss Saskia." And even when Rex attempts to walk off with the keys, Raymond mentions how eternal uncertainty is the absolute worst. That, combined with his digging up his and Saskia's buried coins, seals Rex's fate.

During the drive back to the gas station, Raymond tells Rex that he first realized he was a sociopath when he was sixteen, when he climbed over the railing of a balcony and jumped down to the ground below. As he tells Rex, "Everyone has those thoughts, but no one ever jumps. I told myself, 'Imagine you're jumping.' Is it predestined that I won't jump? How can it be predestined that I won't? So, to go against what is predestined, one must jump. The fall was a holy event. I broke my

left arm and lost two fingers. Why did I jump? A slight abnormality in my personality, imperceptible to those around me." He goes on to describe how he didn't have another such epiphany for 26 years, when he saved a young girl from drowning in a river. Lauded as a hero by his younger daughter, Raymond describes how he himself, "Thought that her admiration wasn't worth anything unless I could prove myself absolutely incapable of doing anything evil. And as black cannot exist without white, I logically conceived the most horrible deed

that I could envision right at that moment. But I want you to know, for me killing is not the worst thing." Raymond proves that when he buries Rex alive, just as he likely did Saskia, and then goes on with his life with his unsuspecting family, leaving us unsure of what he might do next.

That, by the way, is a truly chilling thought, that the movie ends with Raymond's family still totally unaware of the monster he really is. Both his younger daughter, Denise (Tania Latarjet), ironically the one who saw him as a hero when he saved the girl, and his wife, Simone (Bernadette Le Sache), suspect that the reason he bought the isolated farmhouse is because he's having an affair but that's the worst thing they ever come up with. They also have no way of knowing that Raymond

involves them in the planning of his evil deed, taking them out to the farmhouse and prompting them to scream to see how far the sound travels, scaring his older daughter, Gabrielle (Lucille Glenn), into screaming with a bunch of spiders hidden in a drawer, and also testing his method of drugging a victim through a friendly gesture to Denise. Speaking of which, Denise gives her father a photo album as a birthday present that contains the photo of his teenage self with a cast on his arm,

sparking the idea to act injured to lure in a potential victim. And while Gabrielle does nothing that significant, her old volleyball coach, Gisele Marzin (Raphaeline Goupilleau),is someone Raymond tries to lure into his car, before realizing who she is and getting cold feet. Like Denise, Gisele suspects he's trying to pick up women for a totally different purpose and suggests doing his "hunting" far outside of town, commenting on the amount of foreigners she sees, and adding, "Stop at any gas station. You'll find hundreds of women." Thus, this leads him to the very gas station where he abducts Saskia.

In the way The Vanishing is filmed, you can definitely see hints of George Sluizer's history as a documentary filmmaker, as he shoots it in a very matter-of-fact, fly-on-the-wall manner, only occasionally getting particularly showy or arty with his camerawork. He often makes sure the audience can see everything going on around the characters, even if they themselves aren't aware of it, prompting you to look in the background to see if you can spot something going on. That works

particularly well in the scene where Saskia disappears. The camera stays with Rex as he waits by the car for her to return, showing us the same angle on the gas station, and when a big cargo truck pulls in as Rex snaps a Polaroid of his own car for a joke, you can't help but find yourself straining to see around it, thinking it might be blocking something vital you need to see. Later on, when Rex is talking with the gas station manager in his office, you see a car pull up outside the window, momentarily making you wonder if this is

something sinister, but it turns out to be nothing. But, when Rex and Lieneke wait at the Cafe De Beaux Arts, following a shot that pans around to directly behind them as they talk, you can see Raymond watching them from his balcony before it cuts to the angle on him, though you're likely to miss it the first few times, since you should be focusing on their conversation. And then, after a long time has passed and their conversation grows more tense, you can see Raymond slip into the

background and sit down at a table behind them right before Lieneke walks away. Ironically, for a few seconds in that moment, Rex unknowingly looks right at the center of his obsession before getting up and running after Lieneke. The way Sluizer shoots the infamous ending where Rex awakens to find himself buried alive in a coffin is another instance where he gets a little bit fancy with his filmmaking but it's used to great effect, as the camera pans from Rex's face to his feet,

showing how utterly trapped he is, with no way to escape, a feeling that's lent even more power by how the only source of light is his cigarette lighter. Speaking of which, while the daytime scenes come off as pleasant enough, albeit with a little grit to the way the film looks, the scenes set in darkness, like in the tunnel, the nighttime exteriors, and especially that ending, have a murky quality to them that makes them come off as almost totally enveloped in pitch black, to where you virtually can't see anything.

It seems like it's a rule in European cinema that there have to be at least several instances of really artistic, fancy camerawork and images and The Vanishing, despite its mostly straightforward visual presentation, is no exception. The film opens on a shot of a walking stick hanging onto a small branch and, during the final scene, you see a praying mantis moving around through the grass, before the camera pans over past the possible spots where Rex and Saskia are buried, as Raymond watches his family mill about the farmhouse. You could

likely take these shots as symbolic of Raymond himself, who, like the walking stick, blends in with his environment to hide his true nature, which is actually that of a predator, i.e. the mantis. There are also shots from Rex and Saskia's points-of-view as they drive through the tunnel, notably one of the opposite end, where Saskia is waiting for Rex, a vision he also sees in his final moments after he's been buried alive. the latter probably meant to symbolize how, after all his time of searching, he has "found" her, in a sense. And speaking of POV shots, there's a very memorable one looking through Raymond's glasses when he first sees Rex and Saskia pull up at the gas station.

Another symbolic and metaphorical aspect of the film is Saskia's recurring nightmare, about being trapped in a golden egg, forever floating through space, as suffers from horrible loneliness. As she and Rex drive through the tunnel, she talks about how, when she had the dream again most recently, it was different: "This time there was another golden egg flying through space, far away. And if we were to collide, it'd all be over." And then, three years later, Rex has the same exact dream, prompting him to launch into his public appeal to

finally learn what happened to Saskia. The exact significance of these dreams are anyone's guess but I think the most obvious interpretation is that, in Saskia's dream, Rex is in the other egg (he himself reads it that way later), and that they ultimately represent the individual coffins they're buried alive in, completely trapped and alone. It's also been suggested that the two coins they bury at the base of the tree near the gas station, symbolizing their always being together, represent the eggs and that, when Rex digs them back up before drinking the

drugged coffee and sees that they're touching each other, it is "all over," as she said, and he has nothing left to but to take the drug. Also, Rex later says that, in his dream, he and Saskia did find each other out in space, so when he digs up the coins, he could see that as his dream being realized and, thus, giving him the courage to completely submit to Raymond, even saying, "I drank it for her." Finally, the very final image is a shot of newspaper with an article on Rex's own recent disappearance,

showing a photograph of him right next to one of Saskia. Both of these images are in an oval shape, and everything around them turns to black, leaving them looking as though they're floating in space. You could see that it symbolizes how they did, in the end, find each other and are together in death... or, since the "eggs" aren't touching, you could also see it as them still floating out there, forever alone, just as Saskia feared.

A downright cryptic moment occurs after Lieneke leaves Rex: as he sits alone in his apartment, he walks over to his computer, enters Lieneke's name on some list, is told that her name is not on it, and then, Saskia's name starts popping all over the screen. After that, various women's names and their phone numbers are listed on the screen, only for each one to be replaced by Saskia's name. Watching this, Rex initially seems confused but, as it goes on, he smiles to himself. It's never explained what this means, exactly and, like with the dreams, there are various theories: that this was a screensaver installed by Lieneke to tell Rex that Saskia has completely taken over his life, that it's Rex's obsessed mind playing tricks on him, or it's a program he himself came up with for his own personal comfort.

One of the major differences between the film and the book is that the narrative in the former is done in a non-linear manner, although it's not until quite a while into the film that you realize this is so. In fact, the very unconventional manner in which the story unfolds is one of the things that really threw me the first time I watched it. For the first 25 minutes, we're dealing with Rex and Saskia, their relationship, the latter's disappearance, and Rex becoming frantic to learn what became of her. Then, suddenly, we're following around this man

whom we caught glimpses of at the gas station, as he takes his family out to the isolated farmhouse, does some experimenting with chloroform, rehearses a routine, and contends with his wife and daughter believing he's having an affair, before we then see him at the gas station when Rex and Saskia pull up. That's when you realize what's going on, but before that, the film gives no hint at all that what you've been watching in the fifteen or so minutes since Saskia's disappearance took place beforehand. And then, we've suddenly jumped

ahead three years, though we don't know it until we see missing posters for Saskia that state as much. While it certainly is daring and experimental for Sluzier and his main editor, Lin Friedman, to have it play out this way and only start to come together when Rex and Raymond first meet, I also feel it's a bit too tricky of a way to tell this fairly straightforward and simple kind of story and could easily turn off first-time viewers, as it did with me initially. Plus, I think it shows its hand far too early.

Instead of the glimpses of Raymond putting on his false cast and sling, then watching Rex and Saskia's arrival at the gas station, during the opening, it might've been more effective to stick with Rex and his obsession with learning what happened to Saskia for almost the entire first half. Raymond approaching Rex should be the first real time we see him, aside from maybe some early background glimpses we wouldn't think twice of the first time around, and during their journey to

France, we could have all of Raymond's backstory, including how he first devised this diabolical plan and how he prepared and refined it up to when he abducted Saskia, play out in flashback as he tells Rex of it. You could then ultimately reveal who he was in the background before in a real, "Oh, it was him!", type of moment, and then go on from there to the ending. Many probably find the way in which the movie unfolds as it is to be really inventive and thought-provoking but, again, I think it's way too needlessly complicated and could have easily been done in a simpler manner.

Though it was made by a Dutch filmmaker, The Vanishing is set almost entirely in France, save for the little bit of business at Rex's apartment in Amsterdam and the border crossing in Rekkem, Belgium. It does do a pretty good showing off the beauty of the country, with its lovely hills and mountains, small villages, and, in the case of the town in Nimes, where a good chunk of the story takes place, the old-fashioned architecture of many of the buildings and streets, but this beauty is often juxtaposed with the very sinister nature and subject

matter of the film. For instance, a benign and picturesque farmhouse out in the middle of countryside is given a chilling connotation when it becomes the place where Raymond lays out his horrific plans, as well as likely being the location of his victims' graves. Also, the lovely Cafe Des Beaux Arts in Nimes becomes the place where Rex believes he will meet up with the man who abducted Saskia, only for him to instead be watched and toyed with from both afar and nearby. In addition, the movie also succeeds in giving more

mundane locations and settings an unsettling air, like the very nice and fairly large home where Raymond lives with his family, which we know is actually the home of a psychotic monster; the streets where he attempts to lure unsuspecting women to their doom; the tunnel that causes immense terror for Saskia when her and Rex's car breaks down in it; and, most significantly, the gas station, where she's taken. That last location especially is made to come off as both benign, when Rex and Saskia first arrive and are lounging around in the recreational area, and sinister, both when Saskia first disappears and when it's seen at night, where it has an almost noir-like feel thanks to the murky blackness of the movie's nighttime cinematography.

The mundane, everyday nature of many of the film's key locations, particularly the gas station, speaks to the frightening reality at the movie's core: you could be traveling anywhere, be it on a vacation or just a simple trip into town, with a loved one and, when you least expect it, something could happen to them. God knows how much this scenario is a parent's worst nightmare, let alone a grown adult discovering that something has happened to his or her significant other, and it also shows how, even if it's a public place, it's not

impossible for them to be spirited away. The movie then goes into another nightmarish situation: what if this happens when you are somewhere far from home? You're on a nice holiday, taking in the sights, relaxing, and then, bang. The person you were with is suddenly gone. Or worse, like Rex and Saskia, you could be having a trip that's already somewhat fraught, with a moment where your loved one seems to have disappeared, only for it to turn out to be a false alarm, and then, it

happens again, this time for real. And finally, there's the issue of it happening when you're in another country where the dominant language is not your own. For Rex, that's not a problem, as he speaks French very well, but Saskia has a lot more trouble with it when she runs into and speaks with Raymond, at some points using Spanish words. While her troubles with the language don't necessarily contribute to her demise, they do make her come off as all the more vulnerable and easier prey for the intelligent, calculating Raymond.

Going back to Raymond, the film also succeeds in giving us a frighteningly real, down-to-Earth depiction of a psychopath. As Mark Kermode said during the movie's segment on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, "[He's] seen as so normal, so absolutely boringly normal. He's not Hannibal Lecter... He's not, you know, Freddy or Jason. He's just this normal guy who wonders whether he can do something terribly evil, and discovers that he can." Like I described, he's a very affable, charismatic, funny guy, and even when he

and Rex are driving from Amsterdam to France, they find there's something they can actually connect on. At one point, Rex asks if they can stop and get out of the car for a while, which Raymond agrees to, and as they hang around this place, they make small-talk. They talk about cycling, which was going to be part of Rex and Saskia's holiday, about the Tour de France, which was going on at that time, and even about their respective languages and how unusual some of the names are. 

Speaking of Raymond actually being funny, there are moments where the film manages to pull humor out of situations that are quite horrific. His rehearsals of his abductions are inherently amusing due to his attention to every minute detail, as well as his pretending to talk with a possible victim and entice her into his car, as he's really laying it on with the fake niceness and charm, with the music only adding to it. There's a moment where, as he's practicing, he fumbles with opening the passenger door, and when he goes around to get in the driver's

seat with the handkerchief that has chloroform on it, he ends up getting it on his pants, prompting him to start over. Later, as he's describing his preparations to Rex, there's a moment where you see him trying to learn enough English to lure an American or British tourist into his car. As he practices saying, "I must hitch it onto my car," his thick French accent makes it sound like he's saying, "I must eat shit." He then records himself trying to say it, only to get initially frustrated and grumble, "Oh, it's impossible." After that, you see

an attempt to lure in a British tourist by asking her to help him attach a wooden cart to his car's trailer hitch, only for her to send over her husband to do it. He claims he can't do it alone but the guy picks up the cart and its bar like they're nothing and confronts him about what he wanted from his wife. Raymond claims, "I need help," and the man taps the side of his side, saying, "It's here, you need help. Here!", and walks off, dropping the bar with a loud clang. And finally, you have the moment that

led to him preying on Saskia. He comes very close to trapping a victim, only to have a sneezing fit and cover his nose with the handkerchief laced with the chloroform, prompting him to abandon it and run to the gas station's restroom to wipe his face. He even laughs at himself, recognizing the humor in it.

But these relatable and even likable aspects of Raymond not only make his sociopathy all the more unsettling but are also, most terrifying of all, true to life. You often hear about how people who knew serial killers and psychopaths personally were shocked at the thought of them actually doing the things they did, as they knew them as these nice, everyday kinds of guys, and you could definitely see this happening with Raymond were he ever caught. The fact that he's a successful family man, with a wife and two kids, makes him

no different than Dennis Rader, aka the BTK killer, who was also the president of his local church and a Cub Scout leader. In fact, in the flashback to when Raymond gets Saskia, there's a moment where she hesitates to get in his car, but then sees a photo of him with his family on the dashboard and figures he's harmless, leading to her doom. In addition, Raymond's ploy of acting injured to play on people's sympathy to get closer to them is akin to one of Ted Bundy's methods. And finally, again,

the scariest thing about Raymond is how normal he is, that he's a monster hiding in plain sight, a notion the movie emphasizes when you see the TV special Rex goes on, which features footage of a crowded town square in Aries, the newscaster saying, "There might be a murderer. You might see him, but you won't realize it. He's just another face in the crowd." And when Raymond is watching the program with his family, one of his daughters points out that they are, indeed, in the footage.

The Vanishing is most well-known for its ending and for good reason, as it's the ultimate nightmare for anyone who's claustrophobic, as well as just horrifying in general. The way George Sluizer orchestrates the reveal is very skillful, as it cuts from Rex passing out in Raymond's car from the drugged coffee to a shot of Raymond covering a wooden box over with dirt. Then, for a full twenty seconds, you're looking at a totally black screen, as you hear Rex coming to. That's when he flicks his cigarette lighter, realizes where he is, and starts

frantically yelling for help (Gene Bervoets was stuck in an actual coffin under a ton of sandbags, so his performance is quite genuine), as the camera turns around completely to show just how trapped he is. He feels at the sides and claws at the lid above him, trying to make it budge, when his lighter starts going out. As he repeatedly flicks it to light it up again, only for each attempt to take longer and yield dimmer and dimmer results, he starts laughing hysterically, commenting, "My

name is Rex Hofman, and that's a bit weird." He yells, "I am Rex Hofman!", at the top of his lungs, when his lighter promptly runs out of fuel. He flicks it one last time, creating just a tiny, blue flame glowing in the dark, that then goes out. In a POV shot of the flame, it transitions to one of the tunnel at the beginning, with Saskia waiting at the other end, followed by a close-up of her smiling while sitting against a small tree. That leads into the final scene, of Raymond and his family milling about at the farmhouse, while in the back of his car is a newspaper containing an article on Rex's recent disappearance.

If I were to describe the film's music score in one word, it would be... off-putting. It makes sense when you learn that the composer, Hennie Vrienten, was once a member of a ska band (Doe Maar), but still, this music was not at all what I was expecting. Not only is it much bigger and more expressive than you'd expect for a low-key thriller like this, but it often has a very bizarre sound to it. For instance, the opening theme is made up of what sounds like electric guitar strings being plucked and flicked, making for an unusual way to open the movie musically, though I guess you could say it fits with how awkward and unsure Rex and Saskia's relationship is. It's replayed when the two of them are killing time near the gas station, and when you have that nonverbal exchange between them after Saskia makes Rex swear he'll never abandon her, you have a brief instance of soft, piano music. Speaking of soft, the moment where Saskia momentarily disappears in the tunnel, only to appear on the opposite side, is scored with a very soft bit of music with a slight bit of vocalizing behind it. When Saskia truly disappears, the music starts off as airy and eerie, like you might expect, but then it's accompanied by these sharp, over-the-top, driving notes, followed by an electronic, "Beep! Beep!" sound, akin to really hard guitar riffs. Later on, when Rex has a dream similar to Saskia's and drives back to Nimes to try to draw Raymond out of hiding, it's played to this fast-paced, electronic sort of chase music. That weird moment with him on his computer is set to a very off-kilter, unusual piano piece, and the lead-up to him drinking the drugged coffee after he digs up the coins is this theme that almost sounds like a march and just builds and builds until he rushes over to the car and downs the coffee, wherein it abruptly stops.

The music that accompanies the character of Raymond Lemorne is especially strange. When you first see him early on, as he puts on his fake sling and cast, you hear a distinctly uncanny sound played on a saxophone, which becomes something of a leitmotif for him that you also hear during the ending, where it now carries even more cynical connotations. Another bit of music that accompanies him is a low string piece accompanied by some odd plucking, which you first hear when he describes the isolated farmhouse as a passion to his wife, as well as another ethereal, airy piece that's accompanied by its own type of plucking sound and electronic notes. When you see him rehearsing his routine of abducting someone, and later when he's actually trying to lure in a victim, it's played to a more traditionally French-sounding piece of music that seems to hint at how he's trying to come off as smooth and charming but fumbles here and there. Just really unusual all around, but certainly memorable.

If you're intrigued by The Vanishing but have never seen it, even if you've always known about the ending or you've seen the American remake and were burned by it, I would still suggest giving it a shot at least once. It's very well directed and shot, has a good cast who all give great performances, especially Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu as the villainous Raymond, there are intriguing cryptic and metaphorical aspects to the story, the ending is downright horrifying, even for those who aren't

claustrophobic, the music score is bizarre and abnormal but memorable, and the film has some frighteningly real ideas and scenarios at its core. However, I do think it would be more easily accessible to audiences had it been told in a less complex, non-linear manner, as I can easily see people being turned off by that, just as I was, and I also feel that the movie lost an opportunity to make Raymond's unmasking a more impactful revelation. But, on the whole, the movie is well-made and successful enough in what it sets out to do that I would give it a recommendation.