“Sean Penn’s intense thriller ‘Black Flies’ takes Cannes by storm”

Sean Penn was present at Cannes to defend “Black Flies”, a film by French director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, in competition at the festival. A film about the emergency services of New York, which does not skimp on the trying sequences.

Hang on. In terms of an immersive film, totally embodied, almost suffocating in its tension and its absolute urgency, “Black Flies” will remain one of the particularly strong experiences of the Cannes Film Festival competition. Produced and performed by Sean Penn, directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, this chronicle at the heart of the nocturnal daily life of New York’s emergency paramedics is an emotional and dizzying shambles, whose exercise in staging merges with a staging abyss of its two main protagonists.

A seasoned veteran tormented by his marital worries (Sean Penn always touching) and a young and future medical student, plunged into the deep end without care (Tye Sheridan, impressive of mixed strength and fragility).

No respite on screen

Exhausting races against the clock to save lives, violence, insults and ingratitude of the victims who we nevertheless wish to help, appalling scenes where the five senses are put to the test. Not to mention the incompatibilities of moods between colleagues, cases of conscience or permanent doubts. “Black Flies” is a tough movie, with some harrowing scenes. An abrasive experience that kicks off with a bang without giving you any respite. Or so little.

A film that also reminds us how much the most powerful country and the most famous city in the world harbor their share of daily nightmares and ordinary heroes ready to do anything to face them; and above all defeat them.