‘Black Flies’: Cannes Review

Dir: Jean-Stephane Sauvaire. US. 2023. 124mins

“I don’t know if I believe in heaven,” a character declares in Black Flies, “but I believe in hell.” Jean-Stephane Sauvaire’s intense drama deposits us in a very specific perdition, studying the increasing spiritual despair of a rookie paramedic who is ill-equipped for the emotional toll of his harrowing job. Tye Sheridan is convincingly frayed as this inexperienced EMT, paired with Sean Penn as his grizzled veteran partner. But the relentless descent into darkness eventually becomes exhausting rather than searing or insightful, lapsing into cliche in an attempt to externalise the mental strain put on those charged with saving the lives of others.

Despite the crushing realism of the performances, Black Flies cannot escape a sense of familiarity in the dynamic between the two characters

Sauvaire’s first US production brings him back to Cannes. (His 2008 feature Johnny Mad Dog won the Prix de l’Espoir in Un Certain Regard, while 2017’s A Prayer Before Dawn screened in a midnight slot.) Black Flies will draw comparisons to Bringing Out The Dead, Martin Scorsese’s similarly New York-themed drama that starred Nicolas Cage as an unraveling paramedic (based on the Joe Connelly book), although potential distributors may warily note that 1999 picture was a financial failure. Penn and Sheridan should help raise visibility, and the film’s uncompromisingly bleak worldview could appeal to adventurous arthouse audiences who welcome being put through the ringer. Miixed reviews may hurt the cause.

Cross (Sheridan) has recently moved from Colorado to New York City, where he has been working as a paramedic in Brooklyn for a couple of weeks, his sights set on getting into medical school in order to become a doctor. He is assigned to Gene ‘Rut’ Rutkovsky (Penn), a long-time EMT who takes Cross under his wing. The pair respond to 911 calls which force Cross to encounter grisly emergencies involving overdoses, domestic-violence incidents and imperilled at-home births.

Working from Shannon Burke’s novel, which was inspired by the author’s EMT experiences in New York, the director films Black Flies like another kind of war picture, capturing the breathless chaos of these life-and-death ordeals as Cross and Rut wade into volatile situations. Often, it is not simply that these paramedics must keep someone from dying — they invariably contend with panicked family members or dangerous environments, which only further complicate their job. David Ungaro’s gritty cinematography emphasises the lurid late-night atmosphere, the relentless flashing red light of the ambulance becoming a visual motif suggesting the anxious state of high alert Cross feels, even when he is off duty. 

Sheridan and Penn, who years ago co-starred in The Tree Of Life, have a manly rapport, with the more sensitive Cross quickly learning that he needs to toughen up to withstand a paramedic’s life. Penn plays Rut as a hardarse who is sceptical that his new partner can hack it but slowly warms to the idealistic younger man, even though he is slightly resentful that Cross only views this job as a stepping stone to a loftier future profession.

Unfortunately, despite the crushing realism of the performances, Black Flies cannot escape a sense of familiarity in the dynamics between these two characters. Many cop films involve a cranky old pro and a wide-eyed newcomer and, although Sauvaire transplants that relationship to the gruelling milieu of paramedics, there is very little surprise about how each man will evolve over the course of the picture.

This predictability is especially disappointing with Cross, who becomes more and more unglued by the horrors he has seen, painting Sheridan into a corner in which he has to amp up his character’s mental deterioration to such a degree that it becomes monotonous and overwrought. Because Rut is already a hard-bitten veteran, Penn is more measured, the Oscar-winning actor hinting at the depth of sorrow underneath his cynical veneer — in particular when he visits his ex-wife Nancy (Katherine Waterston), one of many former partners he has disappointed along the way.

Provocatively, the majority of Cross and Rut’s calls involve people of colour and the poor, who are often played by nonprofessionals. It’s a fine line that Sauvaire walks, not always successfully, as he dispassionately presents this stark contrast between his white main characters and the immigrant and minority communities they are tasked with helping. Too often, these sequences feel fussily choreographed in their bedlam, reducing those in need to props meant to symbolise the agony of these men’s job.

No doubt Black Flies wants to honour the heroism and sacrifice of paramedics — the end credits include a statistic about the alarming rate of suicide in the profession — but it often dehumanises the people in desperate need of their help. Sauvaire seems more concerned with one group’s suffering than the other.