Release and Reception
The Vanishing was released in the Netherlands on October 27, 1988. It was released to acclaim and the producers George Sluizer and Anne Lordon received the Golden Calf for the Best Full Length-feature film at the Netherlands Film Festival in 1988. The Vanishing was the Dutch submission for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988. The film was disqualified because the Academy determined that there was too much French dialog in the film to meet the requirements. AMPAS deemed that the film was unsuitable to represent the Netherlands. The Dutch declined to send another film, leaving them unrepresented for the first time since 1972. The film was released in France on December 20, 1989 under the title L'Homme Qui Voulait Savoir (English: The Man Who Wanted to Know). Johanna ter Steege won a European Film Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1988.
The Vanishing was praised on international release. It was released in the United States in 1991 and made the list of Top Foreign films of 1991 by the National Board of Review. Desson Howe of The Washington Post praised the film's avoidance of cliches, noting that it is "refreshingly free of manipulative scenes involving running bath water, jagged-edge cutlery and bunnies in the saucepan". Howe also made note of the unusual move of revealing the killer immediately and spending significant time learning about him. Roger Ebert wrote a similar approval of this in the Chicago Sun Times stating "One of the most intriguing things about "The Vanishing" is the film's unusual structure, which builds suspense even while it seems to be telling us almost everything we want to know." Of the negative remarks, Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress referred to the film as "Okay, but wildly overrated and predictable." The Vanishing holds a very high critical rating at the film review database Rotten Tomatoes, with 100% approval rating from critics with an average rating of 8.3/10. Empire magazine placed the film at number 67 in their list of "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
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