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Re: Favorite foreign films
The Vanishing (Spoorloos, 1988)
What if your loved one vanished without a trace one day on a roadside stop to the service station? You'd look out for him/her for a while, start worrying, address people. Night would fall, you'd be torn, akin to go to the police. To tell them what? The departee's description? The last you were together? What were the circumstances? Did you fight? There are no leads, and so, there you are, trapped in the middle of an unknown country, slowly realizing you may never see this person again. Time would pass, you'd go back home and meet someone else, go on into another love. But the uncertainty never lets go. What happened there on that service station, on the day that changed the course of your life? And how far would you go if someone'd finally contact you and promise to give you answers?
This is the basic idea of George Sluizer's 1988 Dutch-Franco film The Vanishing. Relying on the idea of predestination, by which the fate of the universe has been already decided throughout space and time, the film asks us; did we ever have a choice? Sometimes terrible things seem to happen for no other reason than fate, luck of the draw. Therefore, if there's no way to prevent the unavoidable, the only sound resolution is to seek solace through knowledge. But some things should remain buried...
The Vanishing is a slender yet altogether haunting battle of minds between Rex (Gene Bervoets), a young Dutchman obsessed in tracking down her long-lost girlfriend Saskia (the lovely Johanna ter Steege), and Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), a seemingly respectable French familyman who knows more about the fateful day at the service station then he'd like to let out. Sluizer circles around his lead characters for a good while before allowing them to physically meet, interlapping various time levels of their recent history with enviable ease. This way, we are allowed to get under the skin with both Raymond and Rex, to see what makes them tick well before they meet, spiralling towards each other through the memory of the waif-like Saskia.
Practically in total devoid of the trappings of the American thriller format, The Vanishing relies on psychological terror instead of superficial muggings, chases and hideaways. Instead of graphical violence, we are presented with a horrific everyday scenario, one that all of us can relate to and may even have experienced to some degree. This is what makes the film so haunting; one can feel for Rex's despair and hopelessness. Sluizer refuses the audience any easy outcome, allowing Rex to succumb into his mania to find Saskia, following his predestined journey all the way to the point where answers do lie. One question remains; is Rex able to get on with his life after all's been said and done?
The Vanishing went out to become an international success and late-career breakthrough for the 56-year old Sluizer. Riding high on the success of his masterpiece, Sluizer would further portray the power of obsession in the regrettably little-seen European co-production Utz, based on the Bruce Chatwin novel on a Czechoslovakian man with a penchant for porcelain, which ends up dictating his life in the eastern bloc. His Hollywood debut, Dark Blood, would halt principal photography eleven days shy of completion due to the tragic death of its rising star, River Pheonix. Sluizer, understandably worn by the more recent setbacks, decided to play his trump card.
An all-American remake of The Vanishing was released in 1993, sporting noteworthy leads such as Kiefer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges. However, by giving too much into tinseltown protocols, Sluizer had effectively robbed his reimagining whatever power the original film held. By no surprise then, the remake literally vanished from the cineplexes while Sluizer followed the dusty road back to Europe, where he never managed to replicate the success of the original film.
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Further reading: A spoiler-ridden essay comparing the Hollywood remakes of The Vanishing and Nightwatch (a highly recommended Danish film) to their European counterparts.
Re: Favorite foreign films
Most of my favorite movies are "foreign." Dario Argento is my favorite director, so that takes up a whole chunk. I adore Takashi Miike, there's another chunk. I don't even need to list titles. Throw a bunch of old Franco Nero on there, a bunch of giallo. Oldboy, for sure. I don't care how cliche it's become to praise that movie, I saw it when it came out and it was and still is breathtaking. I love Michele Soavi, so movies like Dellamorte Dellamore and The Church (with Asia Argento, the most beautiful woman in the world).
Re: Favorite foreign films
I watched Whispering Corridors tonight. This film is what supposedly started the asian horror boom of the late 90's. I'm surprised the boom was so big if it was based on this. Didn't really do much for me. Decent story, but it moves really slow(slower than most asian films), and the ending seems thrown together because they were running out of time(or the writer ran out of paper).
Wishing Stairs is currently the fifth film in my Netflix queue, so I'll be watching that sometime this week. Netflix doesn't have the second film in the series.
Re: Favorite foreign films
I just watched Dark Water. Probably the best PG-13 film I have ever watched. I love how they paced and built up the tension in this. Even if something didn't happen, you just have this sense of dread while watching it.
One issue I have is how the pink bag didn't play a more prominent role, especially towards the end. It appears throughout the entire film, and there's a few creepy scenes with this bag. We know its the dead girl's bag, and the contents are poured out on the counter near the beginning, but we don't get a close up shot of whats in it. My heart skipped a beat when Ikuko was about to open it but her mom stopped her. The bag is never shown again after that scene. I guess its just creative writing and they wanted you to anticipate the bag being opened but never happening, but to me its a case of cinematic blue balls.
I kept expecting some creepy twist involving that bag, even up until the last scene. When the teenage Ikuko shows up, I expected her to find it and open it.
I figured the bag might have a photo of Ikuko's mother and the dead girl. Nope.
Re: Favorite foreign films
I watched Lady Vengeance tonight. A pretty good film, but the definite weak link in Park's revenge trilogy. Didn't even come close to blowing me away like Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance did. His unique style of film making is absent here. Its like he phoned this one in.
Next two films coming are The Isle and Wishing Stairs.
Re: Favorite foreign films
Next two films coming are The Isle and Wishing Stairs.
Scratch that. My cousin is staying the night tonight, so I thought The Isle might be a bit too disturbing for her, so I ordered Premonition and Wishing Stairs.
I'll watch The Isle later this week.
