Black Box

Embarrassing Bodies? Nah. Not really. The Rise (or Fall) of Hitler/the Nazis? Buried Cities? Perhaps. Still, as I flick, late at night, through channels downstream of the BBC, Dave, and Sky, I am drawn, like a moth to flame, to Air Accident Investigations. Not your cup of tea? OK. For me, though, there is a morbid fascination not just with finding out what “really” happened, but in the geekiness of it. It is highly technical stuff. Hauling the black box – if you can find it – out of the wreckage; reading out data from a range of imperfect detectors; and, if you are very lucky, reaching a firm conclusion as to what went wrong.

Of course, I was going to pull up Black Box (Boite Noire) from this month’s French Film Festival. Because even if it was just pure geekiness, I knew it spoke to me. The brief online description gave away little – was, in fact, a sort of black box within a black box. “Mathieu,” it explained, “is a young and talented black box analyst on a mission to solve the reason behind the deadly crash of a brand-new aircraft.”

Quite. Mathieu (Pierre Niney) is very obviously a geek. More, he is someone very clearly “on the spectrum”, possessed of a series of obsessive tics and traits that are tolerated by those with whom he works because he is very good at what he does. Gifted, in fact, with preternatural hearing ability, which means that in daily life, he must compensate with ear plugs. Naturally, he shuns social events, to the despair of wife Noémie (Lou de Laâge).

So, is this a geek film? It starts that way, tracking a more than familiar flight path. Mathieu is good. Very good. Nit-pickingly good, to the point where he irritates his immediate boss, Pollock (Olivier Rabourdin). So, when a major air crash comes in, Pollock wants him off the case.

Except, the next day, Pollock has vanished. So, head of the Air Accident facility, Rénier (André Dussollier) sends for Mathieu and Mathieu very quickly delivers a result. Good boy! Pats on head and much praise for a job well done.

So far, so grey; so ordinary. If you are looking for flash-bangery, there is little of that in this film, from the focus on slowly teasing out bits of the puzzle, through to the muted washed-out colour palette that is used throughout. It is here, though, that everything starts to fall apart.

Mathieu is not convinced that the answer is quite as simple as he first thought. He starts to probe further, alienating, as he does, pretty much everyone around him. Noémie. Rénier. His co-workers, who clearly tolerate his quirkiness just so long as he does not rock the boat. But when he fails to be a team player, ceases to be collegiate, they turn on him.

As the stakes get higher, and the magnitude of what just might be the true story behind the fate of the downed aircraft starts to become clear, so, too, does the dramatic tension within the film. Because even though it never turns into outright action movie, it engages and, in the last ten minutes, had me on the edge of my seat.

No spoilers: but director Yann Gozlan has done a great job here of taking us right up to the line. Is Mathieu deluded? Imagining things? Or is he the only guy who knows the truth? And what will happen to him if he tries to expose that truth, as he sees it?

Along the way, the film engages several slightly recondite themes, including AI, the rights and wrongs of “fly-by-wire” aircraft, and the lengths big business will go to to protect its brand.

Too, it raises questions around geek acceptability. For Mathieu’s gift is the difference in how he perceives the world. So, we see here both elements of that difference, and of discrimination, suspicion. How well, how accurately that is done, and whether it is appropriate representation or offensive cliché, I shall pass on. Or rather, leave to members of the autistic community to comment on.

Otherwise, this felt well done, with highly believable, low-key performances all-round. Definitely worth a watch.