Spoorloos (The Vanishing)

A fine Dutch thriller/suspense/ horro, from 1988.
We are drawn into a story that tightens the gut. We see how the two lovebirds diving their own personalities from each other, the listlessness of the break up. There is nice suspense from the viewer's knowledge that this is at once a horror film, and from our image of the killer before they have it. The use of point of view creates suspence in the viewer's understanding of the narrative structure of the piece most effectively. It is shot in a decent manner, with some interesting questions of repitition asked. The use of close ups does not really help with the identification, the film isn't quite 'hard-line' enough for that and rather acts as a viewer of the action itself, of a helpless second person.
This film can be read as an interesting psychoanalytic tail. Your lead male has his other self, which is transformed into the 'Big Other' when it becomes the sublime object that dissappears. The search starts. Enter the therapist/killer, who wishes to change fate/destiny, and to unravel the codes. The lead is analysed, and comes to the conclusion he would rather know. He finds that when he does know, he himself ends up in a situation not less terrifying than before.
A film about questioning, its limits, and the sublime object. With some jarring, clanging, super cool late eighties guitar chords. Good, though perhaps we rather viewed than felt the character's horror.