233 - The Vanishing, 1988, Netherlands, France. Dir. George Sluizer.
Spoorloos. Trackless. Railless. Without a trace.
Rex and Saskia have driven from the Netherlands to France to go on vacation.
They are driving the highways. She asks if they can exit the highway and take the backroads for local color.
She offers to drive if they do.
They do.
But he is still driving so far.
They pass a gas station. She asks if they should stop. He says No. Later they run out of gas.
In a long, dark tunnel.
He admits he was wrong, and he takes the jerrycan and walks back the way they came.
When he returns with the gas she is not there.
He starts driving.
He finds her ahead standing outside the tunnel.
He tells her, When we were apart I loved you more than ever.
She tells him, I hated you.
Then she laughs. And he laughs.
She makes him promise he will never leave her again.
He promises.
Later they stop again, and they are clearly in love.
She enters a convenience store to use the restroom and comes out with a Frisbee.
They bury two coins next to a tree.
She goes back inside to buy him a beer and herself a Coke.
She will now be driving.
Except . . .
She does not exit.
He waits. He enters. He searches. He asks everyone.
Finally, he realizes.
She is gone.
When Alfred Hitchcock spoke to Francois Truffaut about his methods for the book Hitchcock / Truffaut, he distinguished between suspense and surprise.
Surprise is when you withhold from the audience. Hitchcock was not as big a fan of surprise. Surprise includes whodunits, which for Hitch were mere problem-solving exercises.
Suspense is when you reveal to the audience but withhold from the character. Hitchcock preferred suspense.
He often openly told the audience everything, and in the dramatic irony of our knowing what the character did not know, we waited on the edges of our seats to see how it would affect him.
Hitchcock did use surprise, such as withholding from the audience the identity of Norman Bates's mother until the end, but more often he used suspense.
Suspense brought the emotional drama that was so important to him.
George Sluizer is generous like Hitchcock. He gives us mostly suspense. He tells us almost everything. Almost.
After Saskia vanishes Sluizer goes back in time and shows us step-by-step how we got to this point--who did it, how he prepared to do it, how he did it, and why.
His name is Raymond Lemorne, and he becomes the main character in the story. We watch him plot and plan for years building up to this point. And we follow him until we arrive at this point.
And after this point, we follow Rex, Rex Hofman, and his obsessive search for Saskia. Rex does not know what we know, and it is that lack of knowing that drives Rex on his quest. And keeps us engaged in wanting to help him.
Until it all comes to a head.
Sluizer does leave us with one surprise--what happened to Saskia.
We will not find out that piece of information until the very end.
The film was successful in Europe.
It was remade in America.
Starring Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, Nancy Travis, and Sandra Bullock.
With a different ending.
The remake was directed by George Sluizer.
Again.
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