I saw "The Vanishing" when it was first released in the U.S., and walked out of the theater completely stunned. It stayed with me for days afterwards. A few years later, I saw it once again on cable. While I think it's one of the best and most frightening psychological thrillers of all time, I don't think I could bear to see it again -- it is simply too intense and depressing. This film really gets in your head.
The plot is riveting in its simplicity, and the terrifying ending (which some have, incomprehensibly, criticized) follows logically, indeed inescapably, from the progression of the story. "The Vanishing" is a film about the banality of evil (illustrated by the character of Raymond Lenorme, well played by Bernard-Pierre Donadieux) and the power of obsession (Rex's quest to find out what happened to Saskia). It also poses an unanswerable question: which is the greater horror, never to know the truth about what happened to someone we love, or to know a truth that is too awful to contemplate? What would any of us have done?
The American remake is certainly "dumbed down" -- it's not really THAT bad, but it's simply an average Hollywood thriller. It opens up the airlessly tight structure of the original plot by making the hero's new girlfriend (who barely appears in the original) a major character and playing up the new romance, and of course there is a Hollywoodized ending. The French/Dutch original is the real thing.
The plot is riveting in its simplicity, and the terrifying ending (which some have, incomprehensibly, criticized) follows logically, indeed inescapably, from the progression of the story. "The Vanishing" is a film about the banality of evil (illustrated by the character of Raymond Lenorme, well played by Bernard-Pierre Donadieux) and the power of obsession (Rex's quest to find out what happened to Saskia). It also poses an unanswerable question: which is the greater horror, never to know the truth about what happened to someone we love, or to know a truth that is too awful to contemplate? What would any of us have done?
The American remake is certainly "dumbed down" -- it's not really THAT bad, but it's simply an average Hollywood thriller. It opens up the airlessly tight structure of the original plot by making the hero's new girlfriend (who barely appears in the original) a major character and playing up the new romance, and of course there is a Hollywoodized ending. The French/Dutch original is the real thing.