I was wondering about the curious absence of “Black Flies,” which I happened to catch at its May 18, 2023 debut in Cannes.
Someone finally bought it. Vertical and Roadside Attractions have co-acquired North American rights for “Black Flies” and have consequently renamed it “Asphalt City.” I liked the older title better.
The reason for the long delay no doubt has to do with the unfairly negative response “Black Flies” received at Cannes. N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis dismissed the film as “ridiculous.” Dargis wasn’t alone. There was a gang up from Cannes critics on “Black Flies,” the herd just happened to go in that direction.
It might not be great, or game-changing, but I doubt any of our readers would come out of this film without a bit of admiration for it. Yes, it’s flawed, but it has these absorbingly observational moments that recall Scorsese‘s “Bringing Out The Dead.”
Here’s what I wrote last May:
Last night, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's “Black Flies” screened. It’s in competition, which puzzled quite a few people. I found it mostly accomplished, it pushes our buttons a little too much, and it starts getting repetitive near the end, but it’s the kind of in-your-face film that doesn’t compromise.
If I had to describe “Black Flies” it would be “Bringing Out the Dead” as directed by the Safdies. It does not have the soul-searching spirituality a Paul Schrader might bring to the screenplay, instead opting to find easy answers in its final stretch, but Sauvaire’s filmmaking is solid, ditto Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan’s excellent performances.
This is an extremely grim drama concerning on-call NYC paramedics. There is no light in this film, just pure blackness. “It’s just us, the dead and the dying, that’s the job,” says Penn’s Rut, and that could also perfectly describe what this film is about.
Sauvaire’s film is definitely moody – filled with rage and stress, and lots of it. It’s also very episodic in form as Sheridan’s Ollie and Penn’s Rut, both EMT, go all around NYC trying to save lives. The film, at least a good 80% of it, has them going from one grim emergency to the next. Not many of their patients survive either.
Based on Shannon Burke’s 2008 novel, as she recounts her own EMT duties during the mid-1990s crack epidemic in Harlem, there is a fair amount of incredibly delivered realism to this film.