News culture “The Shining is a children’s film in comparison” This thriller is the scariest film in the cinema: Stanley Kubrick was categorical!
In the long list of films he has seen throughout his life, Stanley Kubrick calls The Man Who Wanted to Know (1988), directed by Georges Sluizer, the most frightening of all.
New popularity thanks to Kubrick’s praise
What is this feature film, virtually unknown to the general public, which is the focus of discussions among cinemagoers 36 years after its release? Released in French cinemas in 1989, the man who wanted to know is a French-Dutch psychological thriller directed by Georges Sluizer and tells the story of a man who is convinced that his wife has been kidnapped when she disappears at a motorway rest stop. He then dedicates his whole life to finding his lover. The trailer is above. The feature film is actually based on a book by Tim Krabbe, L’œuf d’orwhose rights Sluizer had acquired.
Even though it is an amateur project, the man who wanted to know knew how to make the director sweat from cold The Shining – The Wonderful World of Madnessand this especially thanks to the psychopathic role of Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu used to be more used to clumsy roles like in the movies Barbarian Street Released in 1984, in which he plays Chet, a former thug The professional (1981), in which he plays an inspector named Farges.
In a interviewGeorges Sluizer explains that Kubrick was so influenced by his film that he insisted on meeting him in order to understand every directorial decision. This exchange only increased Kubrick’s obsession because later the filmmaker would have wanted to give Johanna ter Steege, leading actress of the man who wanted to knowthe main role for his Holocaust project, Aryan Paperswhich was unfortunately abandoned. In view of the announcement of Spielberg’s next big film, Schindler’s ListKubrick convinced himself that audiences would not be able to endure two cinematic experiences about this dark hour in history. This painful decision was motivated by the desire not to have to endure a simultaneous release with another film on the same subject, as was the case Full metal jacket (1987) by Kubrick, released simultaneously with Train by Olivier Stone.
A second wind
Due to limited funding and difficulties in finding a distributor, the man who wanted to know remained unknown to the general public for a long time. Thanks to a restoration in 2019 by the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam and the support of the distributor Sidonis Calysta, the film has been available on DVD and Blu-ray in France since this year. In April 2024, the Reims Polar Black Film Festival offered an opportunity to present Sluizer’s feature film to French audiences.
