User Reviews

While I applaud the makers of "Disappearances" for managing to accomplish a lot with very little, in the end they put too much on their plates, so much so that the movie ends up as a disappointment. For what was a really low budget, the movie looks great, with plenty of period detail as well as some good cinematography. And writer/director Jay Craven also manages to get pretty good performances from his cast of actors. Unfortunately, Craven ultimately decided that his story would not be told simply and straight. Instead, he throws in a lot of mystifying material, mainly with the unexplained visions the teenage boy in the movie has throughout. But there are also some plot points (like characters disappearing) that are simply not explained. I understand that Craven was probably trying to make something different than expected, but ironically a more straightforward telling probably would have been more successful. I admit that the messy results do grab your interest at times while you're watching the whole package... but then again, so do some car accidents.

The movie plot seems to have been constructed from a disjointed dream. There is not enough realism to hold the viewer's interest. The Vermont Farm scene was a failed opportunity to show the way farms were set up and farm families lived which would have been interesting and entertaining. There was little if no research into the whiskey bootlegging trade of the period. The costumes of the Canadians looked like something from the French Revolution, totally unbelievable. The fiddle playing was good and of the time period but Chris's motions while supposedly playing were unbelievable. The owl's appearance was a never explained mystery and the train disappearing into thin air was too much. I couldn't understand how a live trout got frozen into the ice and why two men in the wilderness without food would release the trout, a good food source.

Set in Vermont during the Prohabition, Quebec Bill(Kris Kristofferson)is desperate for cash after a freak lightning strike burns his barn full of hay. Despite the warnings from his mystical sister, Cordelia(Genevieve Bujold), he decides to go back to his old ways and hatches a plan to steal whiskey from a Canadian whiskey pirate. Quebec Bill and his 15-year old son Wild Bill(Charlie McDermott)along with farm hand Rat(William Sanderson)and Henry Coville(Gary Farmer), the senior Bill's brother-in-law, set out on a treacherous journey across the Vermont/Canadian border to steal twenty cases of whiskey. The trip proves to be unforgettable and a bit haunting. The cinematography is beautiful and the acting is very commendable. Also in the cast: Heather Rae, Luis Guzman and Lothaire Bluteau.

Could possibly be the worst film ever made. At least plan 9 From Outer Space was funny. I can't believe they talked someone into actually putting up money to make this thing. Complete waste of celluloid. Before I saw this crap I had some respect for Kristophersson. I guess somebody needed a tax write off. Please, in the name of all that which does not suck, stop whoever made this, before they suck again!This movie should be avoided by all people who are not on LSD, or my crazy cousin that insists we're part Native American.If you are in the woods, and an owl starts talking to you, see a psychiatrist. It is not necessary to make a movie about it.

OK... so... I really like Kris Kristofferson and his usual easy going delivery of lines in his movies. Age has helped him with his soft spoken low energy style and he will steal a scene effortlessly. But, Disappearance is his misstep. Holy Moly, this was a bad movie!

I must give kudos to the cinematography and and the actors, including Kris, for trying their darndest to make sense from this goofy, confusing story! None of it made sense and Kris probably didn't understand it either and he was just going through the motions hoping someone would come up to him and tell him what it was all about!

I don't care that everyone on this movie was doing out of love for the project, or some such nonsense... I've seen low budget movies that had a plot for goodness sake! This had none, zilcho, nada, zippo, empty of reason... a complete waste of good talent, scenery and celluloid!

I rented this piece of garbage for a buck, and I want my money back! I want my 2 hours back I invested on this Grade F waste of my time! Don't watch this movie, or waste 1 minute of your valuable time while passing through a room where it's playing or even open up the case that is holding the DVD! Believe me, you'll thank me for the advice!

"Disappearances" is a film I'll show to as many friends as possible, and hopefully have many deeply stimulating conversations with others who are stirred and haunted – in a good way – by its magic and beauty. This has "cult classic of the best kind" written all over it, in the sense that it has everything you'd want from a ripping good yarn of a film, would appeal to someone who's favorite film was, say, "Raiders of the Lost Arc" or "Rio Bravo", but plays by its own rules and those *aren't* the rules that get a film a mega-promotional package. And that's exactly why fans looking for something new will love it, and why word of mouth on it'll spread. Writer-Director Jay Craven, working on a small budget, performs the tricky balancing act of capturing the excitement and suspense of the often over-the-top material, while maintaining a humble, understated, down-to-earth tone. Here we have bootleggers, drunken monks, drunken bootlegging monks, car and boat and train chases, a spectral witch who disappears and reappears in the damnedest times and places to offer wisdom, an undead whiskey-running pirate straight out of New England folklore with a gang of henchmen – seriously, what's not to like? - … and as an enthusiast and former resident of Vermont, if I told you how much of this seems plausible, you wouldn't believe me.

The film captured everything best in the rugged, feisty, often adventuresome spirit of the state of Vermont, depicting an outlaw culture that thrived on the fringes of a fading northern frontier, personified in Quebec Bill, a farmer in the Depression who must revert to his old whiskey running practices to save the farm after his barn is struck by lightning and burns down. This guy's my new movie-character hero. His dynamic with friends/partners-in-crime Rat Kinneson (William Sanderson) and Henry Coville (Gary Farmer), of how buddies together in an outrageous, sometimes dangerous situation, each surviving and making sense of things in his own way while putting up with each other - to some degree surviving each other - is spot-on. Particularly that whole scene in the tavern, and the delivery of the line "Because I couldn't stand myself if I wasn't there to help you out of whatever you're about to get into." Kris Kristofferson is amazing as Quebec Bill, deepening my already considerable respect for someone who was already one of my favorite musical artists, as are Sanderson and Farmer in their respective roles. Years back, I had a chance to read the screenplay to this film before it was produced. As a fan of the TV show "Deadwood," when I found out Sanderson was playing Rat, I thought, "Damn, that's perfect!" And it's interesting to find Farmer in both this and "Dead Man", as I found that film tonally and thematically similar, in its dreamlike quality and embrace of fantastical, metaphorical imagery and mystery, things that aren't always explained, yet actively invite the audience to participate with their own imagination and come to their own conclusions. "Disappearances" is, however, far less brutal, as well as warmer and more inviting to like and identify with its characters. Quebec Bill and crew are guys I'd like to hang out with. By the end of the film, I wished I could stay in their world with them longer. It left me longing for the things in the world that have *disappeared* -- SPOILIER WARNING -- as symbolized by Bill and Cordelia literally doing so – END SPOILERS -- under the weight of "progress," even though only the ghosts of many such things have been around to know in my own lifetime. In that sense, I related to Wild Bill, and wanted to see where life takes him from there.

Also a delightful surprise is the film's handling of its demonic villain Carcajou, particularly Lothaire Bluteau in the role. In the novel and script, he was a far less developed, more hulking ogre-like monster, though clearly with a cunning brain. Here, he becomes something far more ambiguous and complex. I don't think I've seen this actor in anything else, though he should be seen more. Any time the character's on screen, you can't take your eyes off him. Moments like when he comes snarling onto the train waving that knife around were genuinely terrifying, yet there were other times when I felt a strange sympathy for him. I really wanted to see more of that character and learn more about him, though truthfully such a character is generally most effective when actually seen only in small doses, someone who becomes an ominous off-screen ever-presence, sort of like Dracula in Bram Stoker's original novel. And like Stoker's Dracula, Carcajou is in many ways a personification of unresolved things within the good guys, things they're not comfortable with, can't yet face within themselves, things they're running from, manifested as a physical boogie-man onto whom those fears become projected... someone from whom they must literally run. Such metaphoric exploration is what's always truly wonderful about the best fantasy in film and literature, light and dark. And "Disappearances" certainly ranks with the best!

"Disappearances," (2006). Starring Kris Kristofferson, Charlie McDermott, and Gary Farmer. Directed by Jay Craven. This film is one of those hidden gems that one stumbles upon by a stroke of luck. I had often thought throughout my academic career, "what is the deal in classical literature with the panopoly of gods, both Roman and Greek?" Had I not read The Future of the Ancient World by Jeremy Nadler, I might occasionally still wonder. But Disappearances personifies the concept of the classical gods by placing their counterparts in modern New Hampshire. The allusion to Aristotelean metaphysics pertains to spirituality and the physical world. For Aristotle "the world is the harborer of spirit, rather than an obstacle which we must overcome if we are to reach the truly spiritual..." ("The Future of the Ancient World," by Jeremy Naydler, p.221). Quebec Bill, the protagonist, does not have to "see through" nature to to access the architypal gods (spirits) who inhabit a supernatural dimension which would be inaccessible to him. For him, the spirits inhabit the physical world at the same moment in time that he does. While the spirits have powers that Quebec Bill does not, he incorporates into his perception of nature the percept that morality is not necessary, but right action is. And right action is his weapon against evil spirits. Quebec Bill and his son Wild Bill are polar counterparts in scenes where Wild Bill tries to impose moral order or prudence on Quebec Bill when he is only concerned with "right action" or the means to his ends. "Right action presupposes connectedness with the indwelling spiritual power that we experience in the act of contemplative thinking which takes us beyond thought to an intensified consciousness of the universal source of thought...a person's true self"...emerges. The other characters in juxtaposition, reveal the obstacles of modern morality one creates when one is not in tune with the spirituality of nature and the proper use of right action. These two Aristotelean precepts, the spiritual dimension of nature and right action, are woven into the fabric of this film, rich in imagery to support them. I cannot give examples in this small space, but half the fun of decoding a film is finding them for ourselves. Take a look at the resurrection of the fish scene. You will find Aristotelean metaphysics as the leimotif running through this film.

Funny and poignant. Beautiful and sinister. Haunting and rollicking. I absolutely love this film. Geneviève Bujold and Kris Kristofferson, who made TROUBLE IN MIND together back in the day (1985), play a brother and sister who could not be more different. He is a cockeyed optimist dreamer, and she is a stern, unrelentingly sensible wraith. What you do not know until the end is that both come from a family of ghostly folk who "disappear." If this is something that causes a potential viewer to throw up their hands and dismiss this film, well, I guess fantasy folklore is beyond them, and they'd best stick to something more simplistic and with less depth. The cinematography is spectacular, especially for people who are familiar with the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and the adjacent parts of Canada, or would like to be. Those of us whose ancestors emerged from the thin topsoil of this granite land of six-month winters recognize the hardscrabble basis of life here, especially during the Great Depression, and the dry wit which characterizes these survivors. The acting is excellent. Kristofferson is astonishing; this role is a reversal of the type of laconic character he usually plays. His Quebec Bill Bonhmme seizes life and gleefully shakes the bejeezus out of it. His son is the adult in the family. Charlie McDermott holds his own in the company of the adults. And William Sanderson is nothing less than marvelous as the grumbling farm hand that Quebec Bill has to continually goose to keep him going. There are several darned near perfect cinematic moments. The first is the depiction of the relationship between Quebec Bill and his wife, Evangeline. She, though conservative, conventional, and convent-educated, is incredibly enthralled with her husband, who has gone into farming to please her and eschewed his whiskey-running past. He loves her back with equal intensity, and although he carries whiskey (for persuasion, if someone's cooperation is needed), he no longer drinks it. The second is the hilarious segment when Quebec Bill talks himself, his son, and his cohorts (all disguised as monks, because they were hiding in a monastery to escape Carcajou) onto a train by bamboozling the engineer with flattery. Having accomplished that first step, Quebec Bill craftily gets the engineer to reveal enough information to enable Wild Bill to take over the controls (neglecting to establish just exactly how to stop the thing). Then, he kicks the engineer off the train, and, having ascertained that Carcajou has boarded the train to find and kill them, he blithely leaves Wild Bill to run the thing and sets off atop the train with a pikestaff to dispatch the enemy, although Carcajou proves to be damned near indestructible. The third segment is far more poignant, because although normally a simple thing like getting shot might not dim Quebec Bill's natural ebullience, in fact, he is gravely wounded, and while Wild Bill's care of his father, who after all has gotten them into this mess, might understandably be a bit on the I-told-you-so side, yet, in fact it is tender and loving. Quebec Bill, responding with an equivalent tenderness and willingness to sacrifice his life, urges the son to leave him behind to face Carcajouarmed, but injured and alone, and save himself, so that Evangeline will not lose them both. The son refuses to abandon his father, and their urgent flight, with Wild Bill alternately dragging his father in a travois and carrying him in his arms, is somber and touching, with the father revealing a vulnerability and self-doubt not previously seen. Nobody does understated vulnerability better than Kristofferson. Suspend your disbelief and try this film on its own terms. You may be surprised.