Criterion Collection: The Vanishing | Blu-ray Review

Remastered just in time for Halloween, Criterion dusts off George Sluizer’s classic psychological thriller The Vanishing for a Blu-ray release. The Dutch-French co-production stands as the filmmaker’s most internationally renowned and enduring work, its sterling reputation still managing to overshadow Sluizer’s own ill-conceived English language remake from 1992 with a cast headlined by Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, and Sandra Bullock (plus a fresh faced Nancy Travis, a name that often gets neglected in flippant references to the production). With Sluizer’s passing in September of 2014, it’s an eerily timed re-release of his signature work.

A Dutch couple on a road trip, Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) run out of gasoline. A heated argument leads to reconciliation, and they properly refuel at a gas station rest stop packed with tourists due to the Tour de France. Saskia goes into the store to get drinks and never returns, leading Rex into an obsessive search to find her. Three years later, the French professor of chemistry (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) responsible for her disappearance is inspired to reach out to Rex, admiring his persistence and perhaps eager to share his secret. He offers Rex a once in a lifetime opportunity.

It’s both the beginning and the end of The Vanishing that contains its most potently tense sequences. We’re already aware that, based on the title, something drastic is most likely going to happen, which we assume will transpire in the nightmarish sequence which finds their car running out of gasoline in the middle of a tunnel. Until that point, they’re shown to be a banal couple taking vacation together, with Saskia relating a significant and repetitive dream she keeps having about being trapped in a floating, golden egg in space, in danger of crashing into an identical object.

Cue the repeated motif throughout the film, seen immediately in the spectral image of the literal light at the end of the tunnel. Dealing with conflict generally determines the strength of a couple’s foundation, and Rex’s abandonment of Saskia in the tunnel displays a grotesque streak of cruelty. We get the sense that the ensuing nightmare has also been a perverse fantasy of Rex’s as well. But his lack of control over her disappearance is what really motivates his obsession with having to find out just what happened to her.

While the film revolves around an absence of a character, not unlike the use of Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane in Psycho (1960), Sluizer’s only real fleshed out character is the murderer Raymond Lemorne, played with icy precision by Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu. We’ve long become accustomed to this type of portrayal, which may explain a bit of the desensitization modern audiences may have toward Donnadieu’s chillingly matter-of-fact sociopath.

The cat-and-mouse dynamic between Rex and Raymond, which leads to the effectively dark climax, was amped up to unnecessary effect in the American remake, the role of Rex’s new girlfriend given more screen presence and a more audience friendly ending administered. But the powerful strangeness that remains intact throughout this original version is the psychological motivation behind the strange tango of Rex and Raymond, a relationship that usually transpires between criminals and their law enforcement counterparts. Rex’s dogged insistence on finding Saskia has little to do with his feelings for her, as evidenced through his interactions with Lieneke—had the relationship’s trajectory not been interrupted, it would have fizzled out in due time. There’s a dark side to Rex that’s teased at playfully, a madness that even makes his final decision rationally believable.

Disc Review

Criterion’s 4K digital restoration is presented in 1.66:1 aspect ratio, the ever changing vantage points and time shifts cued almost exclusively by DP Toni Kuhn. Disorienting and with minimal assistance from Henny Vrienten’s score, The Vanishing is a sly puzzle whose deliberate structure is easily overlooked due to the finality of its ending. Criterion has included brand new extra features for this remastering, including an essay insert from Scott Foundas.

New Interview with George Sluizer:
This May 2014 interview, about twenty minutes in length, explores Sluizer’s inspiration, his second (and last) collaboration with author Tim Krabbe, and the casting process, including some on-set drama between the accomplished Donnadieu’s concerns about Steege’s possible inexperience. Initially, no distributers were interested in the film, but a chance screening conflict at the Sydney Film Festival resulted in the film getting programmed, where it would win the audience award, and thus begin its journey into the zeitgeist.

New Interview with Johanna ter Steege:
Actress Johanna Ter Steege speaks about her experiences making the film in this interview conducted by Criterion in June 2014.

Final Thoughts

Kubrick considered Sluizer’s The Vanishing a truly terrifying film, and its power is in its unsettling simplicity as it explores the potency of its nightmare scenarios. Sluizer has compared the film’s ending to Romeo+Juliet, lovers united in death, intertwined for eternity. Key chains, a Polaroid, a crushed coke can, and various other repeated visuals comprise the film’s puzzling legend. But it’s that golden egg that factors most prominently, heralded by headlights, flames, unearthed coins, and, lastly, Sluizer’s encapsulated headshots from a yellowed paper, burning like eyes in a final moment not unlike how Erik Skjoldbjaerg fades out on Stellan Skarsgaard’s peepers in Insomnia (1997).

Film: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆