Last night I took little note of it being Halloween. My goal wasn’t to watch a scary film or anything horrific, but it all began earlier that morning. I’d been thumbing through Hulu Plus, looking for something to watch for 30 minutes before getting to work and my queue had about 25 films and, in all honesty, I was hoping to watch something in English so I could do a little morning work, browse the net and scroll through Twitter at the same time. Well, that didn’t work out…
I decided on George Sluizer‘s 1988 thriller The Vanishing. I’d never seen it and knew nothing about it. Didn’t even know it was in Dutch and French. Didn’t matter, almost immediately I was hooked. The film begins with Rex and Saskia (Gene Bervoets and Johanna ter Steege), a young couple on a road trip in France.
The first jolt of electricity comes as they run out of gas in the middle of a dark tunnel. Their car has no hazard lights and the threat of them being smashed by oncoming traffic is very real. Without saying where he’s going, Rex heads back down the tunnel to get gas for the car. Saskia is rightly frightened as she scrambles through their luggage in search of a flashlight. Before she knows it, she’s alone.
The film’s title and just knowing it’s a thriller leads you to believe this will be the moment Saskia goes missing. Rex eventually returns with a can full of gas, but it’s immediately evident Saskia is no longer in the car. She’s gone. It’s so early in the film it’s hard to be entirely convinced Sluizer would have Saskia disappear this quickly, but the ease in which he moves from scene to scene makes it all the easier to believe.
Rex starts up the car and as he drives toward the bright white end of the tunnel, a figure begins to appear. Saskia stands there, clutching the flashlight, rightly infuriated. She gets in and they continue on. Words are said, but they ultimately get over the incident as they pull into a service station for gas, refreshments and a quick breather before continuing on.
Sluizer then abandons the story of Rex and Saskia for a moment, introducing us to a new character without a name. A man (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) slides on a fake cast and puts his arm in a sling. His intentions are obvious and we now know the threat is very real. A few minutes pass with general character building moments, giving us additional insight into Rex and Saskia’s relationship. Soon they’re ready to get back on the road, but first she heads in to get them a couple of drinks… she never returns.
It was here I stopped watching yesterday morning and eventually returned to the film later that night with about 70 minutes left to go in the film, unprepared for what was to come next. Almost immediately the film moves three years into the future, Rex is still obsessed with the disappearance of Saskia, plastering the town with Saskia’s face. It takes a moment for it all to register, but it has that feeling of Damn. She is gone? It’s three years later!?! And he is still looking for her.
A wealth of emotions accompany this realization. Fear exists. It’s obvious whoever took Saskia is still out there. Compassion exists. We take note of Rex’s emotional state. Anger exists. We see the man with the cast once again, walking down the street and noting the Missing Person poster with Saskia’s face and discussing it with a colleague. He got away with it, but where can the film go from here?
I don’t want to say any more than I already have as the mysteries and thrills of the film should be seen for themselves. I shouldn’t be the one to spoil them for you, but I will say I wasn’t at all prepared for the genuine thrills this film delivers. What I was most fascinated by was not only the shocker of an ending, but how “right” it felt to end it the way Sluizer does, directing an adaptation of Tim Krabbé‘s novel “[amazon asin=”0747565333″ text=”The Golden Egg”]”, which he co-wrote with the author. The film simply couldn’t have ended any other way as a twisted idea of predestination mixed with fate slowly begin to dominate the narrative as you begin to explore the intricacies of the characters.
Throughout the film I was also drawn to its intensity and began to wonder if it was a film Hollywood could remake. If they did could they follow the similar narrative, which isn’t entirely linear, but instead is about peeling away layers and revealing clues, but never solving the mystery until the very end. Of course, as I quickly learned, the film was already remade, five years later in fact and also directed by Sluizer.
The remake stars Kiefer Sutherland, Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges and I have included the trailer for both directly below, but I would urge you not to watch either of them as both give away enough of the plot that with what I have told you so far, you will likely be able to put the entire film together.
However, it is of note that the Hollywood remake was not able to stick to the story exactly as Sluizer told it before. Watching the trailer it’s quite clear a variety of different “scares” were added to the film leading up to its ultimate climax, which I’ve read more about only to read quotes such as the one from Nigel Floyd at Time Out calling it “a misjudged, lobotomized Hollywood remake.”
There’s also a video from Mark Kermode (watch to the right) discussing the English language remakes of foreign language films and he mentions films such as William Friedkin‘s Sorcerer, a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot‘s outstanding The Wages of Fear, as well as Sluizer’s remake of The Vanishing to which he says the remake “destroyed” the story.
His commentary was inspired by Let the Right One In, and he comes to some fascinating conclusions.
It seems to me what happens with remakes of foreign language films is the one unique aspect of a foreign language feature is what becomes the most prevalent and the focal point in the remakes as opposed to grabbing hold of the story and themes in their entirety. There’s an attempt to be the same, but unique, which ultimately ruins the material.
With The Vanishing, Kermode says the original is about the “banality of evil” and the remake is more about the “evil of banality”. With Sorcerer, he says it’s about “the drudgery of life” whereas Clouzot’s original was about “the terror of death”. He ends with Let the Right One In which he calls a “film about kids that happens to feature vampires”, while the remake is a “film about vampires that just happens to feature kids.”
The analysis makes sense as you see filmmakers using the same story but adjusting the theme, which creates an inner, narrative conflict that is more easily felt than immediately realized. You may sit back and watch these films, wondering why they feel a little… off, and may not be able to instantly put your finger on the cause of discomfort outside of any obvious story changes, largely made in an attempt to appeal to ADD-affected American audiences.
However, if you look close enough, it’s likely that tonal and thematic tweak that changed your overall perception as it just doesn’t quite fit the story in the same way as it did before.
What do you think?
Other English-language remakes that come to mind include Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed (remake of Infernal Affairs), David Fincher‘s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the awful Breathless (a remake of Jean-Luc Godard‘s A bout de souffle), Diabolique (another remake of a Clouzot feature) and City of Angels, a terrible remake of Wim Wenders‘ Wings of Desire.
Kermode mentions two more in the video below in Michael Haneke‘s remake of his own Funny Games and Point of No Return, a remake of Nikita. And this is all before getting into horror remakes.
