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When I searched for "The Vanishing," all I could find was that abysmal "Americanized" version of the film starring Jeff Bridges. What a horrible mistake of a movie that was. Let's consider, instead, the original film in which a fellow and his girlfriend are on an outing when she vanishes without a trace. He becomes obsessed with discovering what happened to her. Whether he can be completely successful in his quest is the whole point of the movie. Why the original director would remake this little masterpiece in English with a Hollywood ending is completely beyond me. See the original. You won't soon forget it.

George Sluizer directed the brilliant, unforgettable Dutch/French suspense flick Spoorloos aka The Vanishing (not to be confused with the wretched 1993 American remake, which he was also directed--difficult as that is to fathom), a potent, haunting, and impressively nuanced thriller. . As for the original, it remains a remarkably effective psychological thriller and an obvious influence on films as diverse as Breakdown, Joy Ride and With a Friend Like Harry. Not to mention, the theme of disappearance has been attempted by many great directors (Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes), but it has never been done as spooky as it is here. It belies how strange life is and how relevant our dreams are.

The film begins with a young Amsterdam couple on vacation in the south of France. They have apparently not been together for a long time as they are still getting to know each other, getting in tune with each other's rhythms. At one point Saskia relates to Rex a terrifying recurring dream she can't explain, which really haunts her when their car runs out of gas in the middle of a deep tunnel. Later, they stop at a park for a short time, and Saskia decides to go into a convenience store to get drinks. But she never returns. After awhile, Rex naturally becomes frantic and goes to the police.

Suddenly the film shifts its focus to the story of Raymond, an ordinary family man, a teacher who is also a self-absorbed intellectual. He is obsessed with the idea of good vs. evil and sets out to experiment with the possibility that he might have an evil side he has never tapped. How Raymond's experiments tie into Saskia's disappearance makes for a fascinating game that eventually takes on cat-and-mouse proportions — but does not go down the roads you will expect.

This film is so well-crafted, that it is easy to get carried away and think that more is being said than what has transpired. But in the simplicity of its story, it becomes easy to identify with the Amsterdam couple and feel caught up in their dreamworld which intermingles with their real-life. A film that is very much in the Hitchcock suspense mode.

The mark of a great film thriller is that it keeps you guessing until the very end and questioning whether, under the same circumstances, you would behave in the same way - either as the villain or the victim - great film!

There aren't too many scenarios like this one. The original version and the Hollywood remake of this film were both directed by the same man, George Sluizer. As I understand from popular opinion, this is one film that was fine the first time round, and not well received on the second go. I cannot fairly compare them, and I have no more desire to see the remake of "Spoorloos" than I do the remake of "La Femme Nikita", namely "The Point Of No Return".

I saw the original version upon the strong recommendation of a newspaper reviewer proclaiming it one of the most disturbing films they'd ever seen. The photograph of a young couple about to be torn apart in the paper reeled me in.

A pleasant holiday excursion goes horribly wrong when a man's lady friend goes missing at a crowded rest stop. He grasps at straws in desperation as very little can be done because few clues or leads exist. The abduction is arbitrary and nearly flawless.

The film was indeed well done and what struck me the most was the focus on that of the villain. It is a portrayal of a normal, respectable family man who trains himself in meticulous detail for an abduction. His cold, calculating approach is probably the most frightening aspect. His inhumanity is difficult to comprehend.

Many film endings can be shocking and may stick with you forever, and for a lot of people that is certainly the case with this film. That's why I was surprised to learn that the TV commercials for this film gave away the ending. However it didn't ruin the film for me.

The suspense and chilling setting of this film makes it hard to forget. The viewer constantly wondering, "What would I do?" or "How would I cope?". Impossible questions we all hope we'll never find the answer to.

Of course, keep a few handy responses in mind should you watch this with your better half when they ask the inevitable, almost rhetorical question, "What would you do if I went missing and you couldn't find me?"

"I'd surely die, dear."

It is best not to know much about this movie before seeing it. It is sufficient to know that it is about a women who disappears and a man's obsession to try and find out what happened to her. This is not a sappy love story and it bears little resemblance to the pale American remake. Reading more about the story will ruin how it unfolds. It was well filmed and well acted. The ending is a shocker. I think reviewers who write a synopsis of the movie's plot do a disservice to people reading the review. The movie's story should unfold before a viewer. The enjoyment is in how the story is told. This is all the more true regarding "The Vanishing".