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"I RECOGNISE TERROR AS THE FINEST EMOTION AND SO I WILL TRY TO TERRORISE THE READER. BUT IF I CANNOT TERRIFY, I WILL TRY TO HORRIFY, AND IF I CANNOT HORRIFY, I'LL GO FOR THE GROSS-OUT. I'M NOT PROUD." --- STEPHEN KING ::::::::::::: Spoilers for plot points and resolutions can occur within my movie reviews with or without warning. Read at your own risk.

Spoorloos (The Vanishing)

February 3rd 2009 00:41
Spoorloos aka The Vanishing DVD cover art
I first saw the Dutch-French psychological-horror Spoorloos (1988, which in Dutch translates as Without Trace) at a film festival after it was first released. It was under its English-language title The Vanishing. The movie finished and left the entire audience aghast at the denouement; what a brilliantly evil construction. Based on a novel called The Golden Egg by Tim Krabbé, who also wrote the screenplay adaptation, and directed by Geroge Sluizer, The Vanishing is easily the most chilling nightmare movie that’s ever come out of the Netherlands.

Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia Wagter (Johanna ter Steege) are young Dutch lovers on vacation in France. There’s an unsettling incident at the beginning where they run out of petrol in a mountainside tunnel. Rex takes the gerry-can and abandons Saskia in the car, much to her dismay. He returns, but she is no longer in the car. He drives toward the light at the end and her silhouetted figure appears. She is upset, but forgives him.
Spoorloos Johanna ter Steege and Gene Bervoets
Johanna ter Steege as Saskia and Gene Bervoets as Rex
A little later they arrive at a busy rest area with café and petrol station. The joke around, and Saskia buries two coins under a tree (a kind of European rite of destiny and romance, perhaps?). She goes to buy them a drink before they continue on their way … but she never returns. Rex spends the next three years actively obsessed with her disappearance, until her abductor, who has been quietly consumed with the crime, finally makes direct contact with Rex.
Spoorloos Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu
Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu as Raymond Lemorne
Rex is desperate. His current girlfriend, Lieneke (Gewn Eckaus), leaves him, fed up with his unhinged emotional state, and Rex knows he will only ever be freed of this psychological affliction and torment when he knows exactly what happened to Saskia. Creepy-looking family-man Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) holds the key. Not just the car-key Saskia was clutching when she vanished, which is the only possible indication that Raymond is telling the truth, but Lemorne promises Rex he will discover the truth if he allows himself to be drugged, just as Saskia was (well, not exactly, as Raymond is offering sleeping pill-spiked coffee, whereas Saskia was chloroformed).
Spoorloos Gene Bervoets and Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu
By chance Rex captures Raymond with Saskia on his polaroid
The Vanishing plays out in dual fashion: one side of the coin is a curious character study of a serial killer, the other side of the coin is a murder mystery which tightens like a cork-screw. The audience feels Rex’s anguish intensely and is just as keen to find out what happened, however the elliptical storytelling keeps the audience at bay, toying with the calculated behaviour and selected flashbacks of Lemorne, allowing a peek into the psychological machinations of her abductor. It doesn’t justify anything, only offers a glimpse into his perverse universe of predestination and evil experimentation.
Spoorloos Gene Bervoets
Rex sits at a cafe waiting for Raymond to appear ... but he doesn't ... or does he?
It is this thematic element of fate and destiny and the fragility of decision that permeates the movie so heavily. The novel’s title The Golden Egg refers to a dream Saskia describes to Rex just before she is kidnapped. She is floating in space cocooned in a large golden egg. She thinks she is alone, but realises another golden egg is floating nearby. Three years later Rex has the same dream. At a pivotal moment in the movie, as Lemorne waits patiently in the car parked at the original crime-scene, the rain pelting down in the dark, Rex digs at the base of a tree and discovers the two coins lying side by side which Saskia had buried three years earlier. He runs around the tree in a moment of blind hysteria, and makes his final decision.
Spoorloos Gene Bervoets and Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu
Raymond and Rex discuss the absurdity of surnames
Spoorloos aka The Man Who Wanted To Know French poster
French movie poster
The three lead performances are exceptional, and Sluizer’s sly direction is superb. Hollywood had to have a piece of the action and in 1993 seduced director George Sluizer to remake his own film for American audiences. In what is probably the most outrageous compromise in modern horror Sluizer changed the ending and ruined the movie. This has resulted in much heated debate over both versions. I can’t stand the remake (also called The Vanishing), but amidst the pages and pages of comments on imdb.com apparently there are some that prefer it.

However imdb.com does mention that Sluizer shot a tag-on ending to the original that incorporates an element of the remake’s changes, but in the end decided not to use it. I’m not sure if the novel ends that way, but that crucial decision turned Spoorloos into a great movie.

Here is the French trailer where it was re-titled The Man Who Wanted To Know:


The Vanishing DVD is courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment, many thanks!

Spoorloos

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews
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9 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Michelle Sweeney

February 3rd 2009 02:05


Competition Queen
Always Learning
Cinema Voyage
I saw the original movie in the cinema around the same time you did and thought it was fantastic. The American remake didn't even come close in my opinion.

Comment by Bryn

February 3rd 2009 02:37


Horrorphile
Michelle, that Hollywood director's cheque must have been mighty appealing for Sluizer to sell out like he did. And Jeff Bridges totally hammed it as well, which undermined the exceptional performance of Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu in the original. I can't believe it's been over twenty years since it was made. It's aged well (apart from the women's fashion)

Comment by Quin Goot

February 3rd 2009 04:11


Cinema Banana
Great eerie film. I watched this movie some time ago, but it still enters my mind fairly often, as I found it really spooky.

Comment by Bryn

February 3rd 2009 04:34


Horrorphile
Hi Quin, yeah there is a spooky element to the movie. But then it ends in a cold, hard, terrifying, horrifying reality.

btw, I love Tintin. What are your favourite of his adventures?

Comment by Michelle Sweeney

February 3rd 2009 06:32


Competition Queen
Always Learning
Cinema Voyage
Over 20 years - now I feel old!

Comment by Quin Goot

February 3rd 2009 11:08


Cinema Banana
I would have loved to have seen this one in the cinema, but caught it on video sometime later. The seen where Raymond discusses how he jumped from a building out of fascination summed up the feeling of the movie in many ways for me. Disturbingly fascinating.

Bryn I grew up with Tintin, how awesome is he?! I love all the books, but hadn't read them for some time until recently a friend lent me Spanish versions of The Black Island, The Crab with the Golden Claws and King Ottokar's Skeptre - which I am loving at the moment. Great adventures!

Comment by Bryn

February 4th 2009 01:37


Horrorphile
Quin, yeah I really liked that scene too! Pivotal!

I grew up with Tintin, had all the books at one point. Then I re-discovered them while I was at university, and could appreciate them on a whole new adult level. Some of faves are: Flight 714, Cigars of the Pharaoh, The Land of Black Gold, and the surrealism of Tintin in America (which for years I only had the French version - which I couldn't read, but loved the images!)

Comment by Damo

February 4th 2009 04:07
This looks cool.

Comment by Bryn

February 4th 2009 04:21


Horrorphile
Damo, right up your alley mate. Rent it.

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