What happened on the Paris-Dubai flight in the minutes leading up to its crash in Haute-Savoie? This is the question to which Mathieu Vasseur, a young and brilliant agent of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, intends to answer. This, to the chagrin of his boss, who assigned another colleague to this high-profile case. Despite the fragmented nature of the recording extracted from the black box, Mathieu manages to prove that it is a terrorist act. However, rather than being solved, the mystery thickens and turns into obsession.
Directed by Yann Gozlan, Black Box is an effective paranoid thriller openly inscribed in the continuity of two masterpieces of the genre: The Conversation (Secret conversation), by Francis Ford Coppola, on a specialist in wiretapping convinced of having recorded the evidence that a murder will be committed, and Blow out (Bursting), by Brian De Palma, on a sound recordist who accidentally picks up a shot proving that a political assassination has taken place.
These films are inspired in return by Blow-up, by Michelangelo Antonioni, where a photographer spots the diffuse trace of a murder on one of his prints. In Black Box as in the first two productions mentioned, it is the sound component, and not the image, which is the key to everything. Without forgetting this discreet tribute to Silkwood, by Mike Nichols, during the outcome, which confirms the “paranoid American cinema” sector.
Each of these past titles bears the stylistic mark of its brilliant author, and if it does not equal these, Yann Gozlan nonetheless confers a distinct character on his film. A smooth invoice like the fuselage of planes filmed in abundance.
Climate of suspicion
Together, the photography director favors grays, whites and pale blues: an icy palette that gives the film a sanitized appearance in line with Mathieu’s clinical approach to his profession.
Black Box is carried by a typically invested interpretation of Pierre Niney, already directed by Gozlan in the dark An ideal man. It is true that the protagonist is basically well drawn. As an aspiring pilot, Mathieu had to give up his dream because of his poor vision. Superior, her hearing allowed her to remain in the field, however, and the film immediately presents Mathieu as an ace in sound analysis.
So much so that his immediate superior seems to take offense. But Mathieu is perhaps having ideas…? This is one of the happiest biases of the scenario, namely to leave doubt as to the reliability of the character’s perceptions.
Indeed, as he investigates quietly, then officially at the end of a development that will be kept quiet, Mathieu comes to suspect everyone or almost everyone, including his wife, Noémie, who works. also in aeronautics, but for the carrier affected by the crash – which is to say for the opposing party. As the climate of suspicion grows, Gozlan proves adept at generating unease and ambiguity as Mathieu questions himself. Is this gaze directed at him deceitful or not? And this conversation in a low voice …
Are we talking about him? Here again, the playing of Pierre Niney, whose appearance deteriorates at the same rate as his psychological state, contributes to the anxiety-provoking atmosphere which insidiously envelops the public.
Of course, the film sometimes gets lost in the sometimes artificial windings of the story, but overall, Black Box captive.