Rated: M
Directed and Written by: Yann Gozlan
Produced by: Wassim Béji, Thibault Gast, Mattias Weber
Starring: Pierre Niney, Lou de Laâge, André Dussollier, Sébastien Pouderoux, Oliver Rabourdin.
French with English Subtitles
“Make the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) talk”, says Renier, head of BEA (Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety) (André Dussollier) to investigator Mathieu (Pierre Niney) after an Atrian 800 passenger plane goes down for, ‘Reasons unknown.’
Just starting to write this review you can already see there’s a lot of tech-speak in this film. Which I enjoyed. The analytics conducted by main character Mathieu just added another dimension to this suspenseful investigation of what really caused a brand new aircraft to crash during it’s flight from Dubai to Paris.
Mathieu specialises in acoustics. He’s precise. He can hear changes in black box recordings other investigators can’t. But the price of his skill is not being able to stop hearing.
He’s always questioning, always listening, even when his team leader, Pollack (Rabourdin) tells him to stop. Even when his wife, Noémie (Lou de Laâge) becomes afraid he’s hearing things that aren’t there.
The film invites the audience to listen as carefully as Mathieu as he investigates, literally pulling me to the edge of my seat, following the twists of this mystery as the story goes deeper.
I really don’t want to go into detail about the storyline or give anything away. But to say I was completely absorbed into the film, the scenes flowing from one moment to the next, the layering of one moment so the first viewing is given a whole new perspective when replayed again later as Mathieu visualises the moments before the crash, like piecing together a puzzle, so we see how his mind works.
He’s, ‘Very clear and precise.’
‘Don’t get Pollack’s (Oliver Rabourdin) back up’, says Noémie. ‘There’s more to a job than skill’.
To which Mathieu replies, ‘So I say nothing?’
He’s fearless in his need to find the truth, yet doesn’t need to wave a flag about it.
This is a finely tuned and balanced suspense-thriller that had me hanging on every turn.
Release part of the 32nd AF French Film Festival 2021