If you have seen Sluizer’s original 1988 thriller—not his 1993 American remake with Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland--you’ll know exactly why we are doing it as a companion piece to Rope. You’ll also nod along with us when we praise the film’s cold precision: it’s not surprising that Sluzier states in the opening clip that Stanley Kubrick admired the film and saw it ten times. Why we often tell people to watch films but to not read anything first about them, the thrill of assembling pieces of information as we watch a film, the terrible weight of truth, and the meaning of love all come into play as Mike and Dan talk about what belongs on everyone’s top-ten list of disturbing and exhilarating films. We seem due for a comedy.

The Vanishing is based Golden Egg, a novel by Tim Krabbé, who co-authored the screenplay with Sluizer.

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