Director George Sluizer's The Golden Egg, The Vanishing
1935 Words8 Pages
The Vanishing (Spoorloos) Fear is undeniably one of man’s most innate and intense emotions. And in today’s world, human beings attempt to provoke this emotion single-handedly especially with cinema. While contemporary genres of cinema such as suspense and horror, do certainly stir this inherent emotion, they often do it in a way that leaves little to the imagination. Director George Sluizer’s Dutch-French co-production of The Vanishing (1988) is an exception to this. Sluizer is in fact able to construct genuine suspense without showing any violence or bloodshed and delivers a sleek narrative that reveals evil so plainly it compels you to fear the ordinary and everyday. Based on Tim Krabbé’s novel The Golden Egg, The Vanishing follows the…show more content… As soon as he does so, Raymond says something that strikes a nerve with Rex and the viewer, “ The eternal uncertainty, Mr. Hoffman? That’s the worst.” This is significant due to the fact that it is an example of Raymond once again using his cunning wit and almost frightening intellect to nourish his sociopathic complex and manipulate his victims. Now Rex needs to know what truly happened to Miss Sasika. Suddenly Rex’s demeanor quickly changes as he runs to the tree where he and Sasiska buried two gold coins. The coins serve as a symbol for their love; the two coins will forever be together, thus symbolizing Rex's earlier promise to never abandon Saskia. The coins can also be emblematic of the two golden eggs from Saskia's dream (a dream also subsequently experienced by Rex), and it is upon seeing these coins that Rex is inspired to submit himself after all to Raymond (IMDb). After Rex digs up the coins, the camera creates another personal and exciting shot from Raymond’s POV. The viewer is now literally Raymond’s eyes as he follows Rex frantically running around the tree in the pouring rain, eventually ending up on top of Raymond’s car to drink the drugged coffee. The shot that follows is personally one of my favorites due to the fact that it creates the first truly petrifying image of Raymond while alluding to his psychopathic nature. The scene cuts to a direct and outside view of Raymond in the…show more content… It starts off by showing Raymond burying a wooden box. The viewer can only assume this is Rex’s grave and that he is now deceased, but the scene then cuts to total blackness and we realize by hearing diegetic noises that he is in fact buried alive. The lighting used in this scene follows the film’s theme of dismal light. The viewer cannot see much of anything until Rex ignites the flame on a lighter, and even then it is still very dark. This type of bleak lighting fits perfectly to help convey an isolated and confining tone. The camera then pans around the lying Rex to establish that he is indeed buried alive. Sluizer uses many up close and personal camera angles in this scene to force the viewer to feel as cramped and confined as Rex is. Overall the scene is dimly lit, except for a part that alternates quickly between the sparks of the lighter to pitch black causing a sort of strobe effect. Rex begins to laugh manically as this ‘strobe light’ occurs, evoking a spine-tingling sense of terror. Rex finally settles down as he stares intently at the flame from his lighter. The film then cuts to a blurred close-up shot of the flame. This shot then beautifully dissolves into a shot from the beginning of the movie in where Sasika is at the end of a tunnel. The difference is that in this ending shot Sasika is bathed in a much brighter and more angelic