The Vanishing Film Analysis

In Hollywood, the films are very straight forward with the idea or messages that the director is trying to reveal in order to keep American viewers hooked on to the film. Whenever a foreign film is Americanized, there are always significant changes in the character’s love life between one another, and the organization of the plot; from the symbolism of the film with the theme of the films are altered. This method is very effective because American audiences want to understand the whole concept of the film, where the language is understandable and the film makes sense. American films tend to have more action, drama, terror and a bit of narrative in between to keep the audience entertained and not bored out of their minds while the foreign movies

Both the French and American versions of The Vanishing, directed by George Sluizer a Belgian director, had good plots, different ideas, and also the different symbolism behind the golden egg in the French original version and the infinity bracelet on the American remake of the film. Overall, the American version is better than the French version because the characters have a more dramatic approach to the situation, the way the film is cleaner, and more action-packed and realistic which makes a suggestion that us American viewers enjoys emotional, dramatic, violent, and action-packed films. Hollywood film director and author of the article “Film – European Movies: Looking for an American Audience” Fred Hift once said, “When it comes to theaters in America, everybody is looking for a blockbuster and you don’t find those among the imports” (1). We need and expect action in all our films even if it’s a love film because a little excitement can change the whole mood in the room. This is why American films are way better than foreign

In the French version, the protagonist and the antagonist are at the gasoline station where the first girlfriend was last seen. The antagonist is pursuing the protagonist to drink drugged coffee from a container and denies the offer at first, but then the antagonist said “If you want to know what happen to Saskia, drink it and you’ll find out exactly what happened to her” (antagonist/French). He drinks the drug and goes unconscious and wakes up inside of a coffin with just a fire lighter with him and the film ends with the antagonist’s guilt facial expression as if he regrets doing what he has done to him. On the American remake, the other girlfriend goes to the woods to find the antagonist’s cabin to find the protagonist to save him. When she goes inside the cabin, the other girlfriend looks for him all over the cabin and eventually tried to call the police, but the microphone on the telephone was rubbed around with the drugged liquid and begins to get dizzy but fights the drug and stays conscious. She used reverse psychology on him by saying “I have your daughter and the only way to see her is to drink his own drug” (the other girlfriend/American). When the antagonist drank the drug the other girlfriend grabbed a shovel and began to dig the protagonist out, but the drug had no effect on the antagonist so he began to assault her. The other girlfriend had already expose the