Sunday, March 7, 2010

Spoorloos

Yesterday, I watched the relatively less heard of dutch psychological thriller/horror movie "Spoorloos - The vanishing". It was one of the best thriller movies that I have ever seen. The thrill comes entirely from the plot and not from the visuals as is the case with many movies nowadays.


The movie is about a young couple who come from Netherlands to France to see tour-de-france. The husband slightly irritated by the wife's constant childish behavior, leaves her alone at night against her constant pleas not to leave her alone, to get gasoline for the stopped car. He comes back to see her crying and feel remorse at his own behavior and promises her never to leave alone.After a few minutes she goes to the store to get something to drink and never returns back. We see the husband searching for her wife in vain. He suspects that someone has kidnapped his wife. He searches for days together without any clue.

In the mean time we see the other side of the story unfold, a thirtyish chemistry professor married and with two daughters, meticulously planning the evil act. He is an ordinary man contemplating this. It is the minutiae that makes this eerie. He chloroforms(not the right word, i know) himself and measures how long he remains unconscious (this is shown in a detailed shot about two minutes). He practices with invisible women, the actual kidnap. He talks to them and asks for directions, asks them to get in the car and chloroforms them. He tries talking to random women in town to see how their response is and measures his pulse rate when he talks.



He sees that the husband relentlessly pursuing this for more than three years, and this intrigues him. He periodically sends postcards to the husband asking him to meet at certain places. The husband is on the wild goose chase. His new girl friend does nt like this and wants him to stop this. But he desperately wants to what happened to his wife.

On one fine day, the professor follows the husband and tells him, that he is guy that the husband has been looking for(reminds me of the confession of John Doe from Seven). And he makes an offer. If the husband comes with him immediately to france he will tell all the information to him. The husband goes along with him. The rest is up to you for watching. It is one hell of an spooker with brilliant performances from all the leading three. 10/10. A must watch.

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