Movie Review – The Vanishing

The Vanishing (1988)
Written by George Sluizer & Tim Krabbé
Directed by George Sluizer

Each life hurtles through time & space on a course that the person who bears it can never truly predict. These lives cross with each other, but more often than not, they make no impact, brief encounters that dissolve. We can feel trapped in these lives, a passenger unable to exert their own will on the trajectory. Look at how so many people will simply follow the path of a parent or choose an identity based on how they will be perceived by the society around them. Even many “expressing individuality” are working from blueprints created by others, a manufactured uniqueness. But then some collide with your life, upending the sedate normality. What if our intersection with them is another moment we cannot escape, pulled into the event horizon of chaos? What is it to see something evil coming over the horizon and be unable to fight against its pull?

A Dutch couple, Rex & Saskia, are on a cycling holiday in France. Saskia shares a troubling dream she had: she was a golden egg floating through a void. In the distance, another golden egg appeared, and in her dream, she could feel that soon the two would collide. The couple’s car runs out of gas, and they pull into a rest stop. Saskia goes to get drinks while Rex waits by the car meters away. She never returns. We go back. Raymond, a wealthy man, has a quiet public life, but he methodically plots to kidnap a woman in private. He uses a false cast & sling to appear injured. There are a few attempts, but Raymond becomes too scared to do it. Then, while hunting at a rest area in France, Raymond spots Saskia and lures her to his car, where he chloroforms her. 

Three years later, Rex is still posting missing person posters and going on local news in Amsterdam to appeal for information about Saskia. Raymond notices this pleading, and his sadistic side is awakened again. He begins to obsess over Rex’s desperate search for his missing lover. All of Rex’s friends want him to accept that Saskia ran away or is dead. He simply won’t. Raymond moves closer & closer, taunting Rex, until he finally reveals the truth about what happened to Saskia.

The Vanishing is a film about our need to know every detail. Rex cannot let Saskia go because he doesn’t know what happened to her. Undoubtedly, he can imagine what happened to her, but he needs it confirmed; he needs hard evidence. The film posits that the obsession of Rex is not much different than Raymond’s obsession with killing women. However, when we see Rex & Saskia together, she seems pretty unhappy in their relationship. They don’t seem to be moving towards any serious long-term commitment, and he often mocks her dreamy way of thinking about the world. Rex can’t think of anything but her when she’s no longer present. However, while she’s alive, he leaves her parked in a dark tunnel (which she explicitly says terrifies her) to get petrol from a nearby station. 

My reading of the film is that Rex’s obsession is partly fueled by his guilt of not taking Saskia seriously enough, of looking down on her. If he could get her back, would he simply settle into those old familiar dismissive ways?

The counterpoint to this is Raymond and how up close & detailed we look into his life upon his introduction. The director stays coldly observant as Raymond assembles his tools, tests out his false cast, and makes some weak attempts at abducting a victim. Interestingly, he shows so much hesitance after being so thorough & precise in his preparation. By the film’s end, you understand who Raymond is and why he does this. That doesn’t mean the film justifies his action; it merely explains how he justifies what he does to himself. Saskia is Raymond’s first and only victim three years later, and he is obsessed with this moment. The collision of these two people has rent a hole in the world. It’s not large enough to collapse everything, but it stretches beyond these two, pulling Rex into the void. 

The Vanishing’s tone & pace feel very on point for a European film. It is slow and measured; music is rarely used for telegraphing emotions. We have to wrestle with horror in our minds; the filmmaker has no interest in giving us metaphorical guardrails. Rex’s personal horror is akin to Schrodinger’s Cat. Saskia is both alive & dead in his mind until he knows for sure, so he ignores his friends, who are trying to help him process the loss. Raymond toys with Rex and is more than eager to show Rex what Saskia’s fate was, which leads to the infamous concluding scene of this film.