Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: The Vanishing [Blu-ray] [2020]

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Monty Marwood

The Vanishing (Spoorloos) - the original and the best (by far)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2020

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The Vanishing is hard to talk about without giving too much away and uncovering a dreaded spoiler. It revolves around the simple premise of a young Dutch couple who go on holiday in France, only for the woman to mysteriously disappear. Cut to three years later - the woman’s disappearance remains unexplained and the man is still trying desperately to find out what happened to her. He (and we the audience) duly find out over the course of this riveting and disturbing thriller.

A Dutch/French co-production released in 1988, the movie’s main themes are the nature of obsession and the everyday mundanity of evil. These themes are expertly explored here by the late director, George Sluizer, who unwisely remade the film five years later for the American market – this US remake should be avoided at all costs, as the original release is by far the better film in every department (but especially so in the writing and acting on offer).

The version of the film I watched was the recent Studio Canal Vintage World Cinema blu-ray release. The image quality and sound on this blu-ray release are definitely an improvement on previous versions of the film available on DVD in the UK. Disappointingly, however, no extras are included.

To conclude, Stanley Kubrick was reportedly a huge fan of The Vanishing, so recommendations don’t come much higher in my opinion.

18 people found this helpful

Cameron Cullen

Highly rated thriller that was remade in Hollywood.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 July 2022

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THE VANISHING (1988) – Highly rated thriller that was remade in Hollywood. The premise is simple enough. Man loses girlfriend at motorway service place and then gets taunted by a mysterious abductor. The criminal responsible is introduced early. Not a violent and unstable thug, but an impulsive, obsessed, thrill-seeker with a family, but himself completely heartless. What’s rather unsettling about this movie is that it’s not particularly graphic, as much as morally dangerous. It is a sort of parable about trusting strangers – or rather not trusting them. The villain appears rather stupid at times, but his mistakes are almost an admission that the character doesn’t think too much of what he is doing. He's a psychopath. This is an important point, being that he cares so little for other people, his own plans are a bizarre mixture of overplanning and also contradictory randomness. The film makes this point well. It confirms the banality of evil, and the take it or leave it actions of people who have no conscience. It’s still a disturbing film, and a cautionary tale.

G_Wode

Utterly terrifying

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 September 2021

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One of the very best psychological horrors I've ever seen. The conclusion will crush you utterly and stay with you forever. Don't hesitate to see it.

NB - In Dutch with English subtitles. Don't let that put you off or you will be missing out!

Bobby Needs

Do yourself a favour & ignore the remake. . .

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 April 2020

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Even if for some unfortunate reason you've chanced upon or even watched the remake & thought it terrible (it IS) i implore you not to be put off in watching this, the original & in my eyes a classic film which only improves with each watch - in a word? Masterpiece!!!

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Another great release by Studio Canal

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 May 2021

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Another great release by Studio Canal

One person found this helpful

Mozza

Fantastic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 April 2022

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An amazing movie (with subtitles) fantastic picture quality a great buy

Trudy L

Love this original movie - don't buy the hollywood version.

Reviewed in Canada on 29 October 2020

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This original movie is a favorite of my husband and mine and we were happy to find it on dvd as its hard to watch on any other platform. The ending is everything with this movie and the remake done by hollywood completely changes the ending and ruins the move entirely. Make sure you watch the original - even with subtitles it is a fantastic movie and the acting and ending are everything.

One person found this helpful

Timothy Nickel

The Vanishing is a great film, unsettling

Reviewed in Canada on 4 January 2016

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The Vanishing is a great film--unsettling; it stays with you--ofttimes a calm (or maybe a frenzied calm is a better way to put it) masks a feeling of underlying evil. My only gripe is that when I first saw it in the theatre (this is the original, back in the 80s; it was called The Golden Egg at the time), there was a chilling sequence where two hitchhikers innocently happen upon the killer while he's on his country property, and rather than chance their suspicions, he murders them both. It's a small thing, maybe 10 minutes of the film, and nothing is really lost if you see the film without it; but having seen it, you do miss it, because it further reveals just what a stone cold pyscho/sociopath we're dealing with. I'm not sure why they would take that bit out. This is The Criterion Collection's DVD version I have (the older packaging from 2002, with the graphic of the service station lights reaching up to the night sky), so maybe they've added it back in for the 2014 Blu-ray and DVD release (with the black dots as a cover graphic), but I wouldn't count on it. Does anyone know?

Gilles C.

Nothing to do with the poor Hollywood remake

Reviewed in Canada on 18 June 2017

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This is the original dutch version. Nothing to do with the poor Hollywood remake.
A suspense master piece. I once met a professor at Harvard who told me he was using it as a reference in his film class.

Douglas Doepke

We'll Meet Again, Some Sunny Day

Reviewed in the United States on 30 April 2006

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Saskia is such a charming, winsome girl, it's no wonder boyfriend Rex can't get over her disappearance. He's obsessed, but then he left her alone once in the dark, and is fated never to repeat that first abandonment.

A superior suspense film, tightly written, well thought out, and very well-acted, especially by Johanna Ter Steege as Saskia on whose performance the film turns. Bernard Donnadieu as the chemistry professor is also subtly effective, the very embodiment of what some call the `banality of evil'-- a peculiarly passive, even bumblng mastermind, but also a shrewd and conniving opportunist. The family scenes of him at one calculated remove from loving wife and daughters are perhaps the most chilling of an extremely disturbing movie.

Unfolding story is not always easy to follow, but rewards are great. Philosophical themes are present but not in obtrusive or heavy-handed manner. Screenplay manages to combine these with dark psychological study such that elements come hauntingly together in final five minutes. It's a movie whose central ironies may not come into focus unless you think about the various threads.

I would think more of director George Sluizer's role in fashioning this sleeper were it not for the moment-of-decision scene in the park. Hyping that scene with phony thunder and lightning is totally unnecessary and at odds with the film's naturalistic style. It is a stagey distraction, and for that slip-up, the director must take ultimate blame.

I can't help but wonder what Hitchcock would have made of the material, particularly the peculiar bond between boyfriend Rex and tormentor Donnadieu. But then, he would likely have replaced the metaphysical aspect with more psychological study, whereas to me it is the successful combining of the two that makes the film so intriguing.

Highly recommended for those who understand that there's much more to fear in life than gallons of splattered blood.

5 people found this helpful

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