The Vanishing (1988 film)

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The Vanishing
Region 1 DVD Cover
Directed by	George Sluizer
Produced by	Anne Lordon George Sluizer
Written by	Tim Krabbé George Sluizer
Starring	Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu Gene Bervoets
Release date(s)	October 27, 1988 December 20, 1989 1990
Running time	107 min.
Language	English French Dutch
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The Vanishing (Dutch: Spoorloos) is a film directed by George Sluizer; Sluizer also produced the film with Anne Lordon. The film is based on the novel The Golden Egg by Tim Krabbé. It was released in 1988 and is in French and Dutch. Sluizer later remade the film in English, but the remake was poorly received.

1 Synopsis
2 Cast and crew
3 Awards and recognition
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A Dutch couple, Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia Wagter (Johanna ter Steege), are on a cycling holiday in France. Their car runs out of gas and they are stranded inside a tunnel. They quarrel for a while, but make up and eventually get going again.

Later they stop at a gas station. Here Saskia goes into the shop for drinks and never returns. Rex waits, getting more worried and nervous by the minute as Saskia does not emerge. He soon starts to question people if they have seen her, but no one has any idea as to where she is. The only clue he has is a blurred photo he took of the surrounding area, in which he can just barely make out her red hair in a group of people next to the gas station entrance.

Rex can not accept his loss and three years after her vanishing he still compulsively looks for her. He has a new girlfriend, but she is so fed up with his obsession to understand Saskia's ultimate fate that she leaves him. His quest even results in him explaining her story on television.

In a series of intermittent flashbacks, Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), a respectable, though quirky, middle-class chemistry teacher, the kidnapper of Saskia, appears both alone and with his family, intricately plotting and planning his scheme to capture a random woman and murder her.

Eventually, Raymond, fascinated by Rex's fanatical compulsion to know what happened to Saskia, confronts Rex and admits to her kidnapping. He explains that he felt the need to test himself, to know whether he deserved others' high opinion of him, by finding out whether he could commit what for him was the ultimate act of evil. Rex's ultimate curiosity concerning Saskia keeps him from killing Raymond, which Raymond is fully aware of. Raymond finally invites Rex to the very same park and gas station where Saskia disappeared, and simply tells Rex that if he drinks a cup of coffee, supposedly spiked, he will know what happened to Saskia. After tormenting himself in indecision, Rex eventually drinks the concoction, falls unconscious, and wakes up to find that he has been buried alive, realising that Raymond has tricked him into his death. For Raymond, a claustrophobe, this is his worst nightmare come true.

[edit] Cast and crew

The cast includes:

Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu
Gene Bervoets
Johanna ter Steege
Gwen Eckhaus
Bernadette Le Saché
Tania Latarjet
Lucille Glenn

The music was produced by Henny Vrienten. It was edited by George Sluizer and Lin Friedman. The art director was Santiago Isidro Pin. Sound was managed by Piotr van Dijk. The cinematographer was Toni Kuhn.

[edit] Awards and recognition

European Film Award, Best Supporting Actress, Johanna ter Steege (1988)
Nederlands Film Festival, Dutch Film Critics Award, George Sluizer (1988)
Nederlands Film Festival, Golden Calf (Best Film), George Sluizer, Anne Lordon (1988)
T#55 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.