More and more people are complaining that their work-life balance is out of control; Stress has long been recognized as a trigger for a wide variety of illnesses. Particularly vulnerable: the employees in the emergency room of a hospital, where young doctors in particular often work extreme overtime and always have to work under immense time pressure – even though many of their decisions have a direct connection with life and death. So it’s no wonder that TV series like “Emergency Room” or more recently “The Pitt” have used this setting for breathless narratives. But all of this is nothing compared to the emergency room in Marion Le Corroller’s body horror excess “Sanguine”, a literally blood-soaked satire in which the demands of the modern working world give rise to unexpected excesses.
Margot (Mara Taquin) was the first person in her family to make it through medical school. She is now taking up a position as an assistant doctor in an emergency room. Her boss Hélène (Karin Viard) is considered as brilliant as she is unpredictable. The stress is enormous, as are the demands. The young doctor soon notices drops of blood running down her forehead without any visible wound – and one morning she even wakes up covered in blood (not to mention her red, soaked bedsheet). Margot feverishly searches for the cause. Her colleague Louis (Sami Outalbali) tries to help, but his Buddhist breathing exercises only have a limited effect. Margot finds out that other young people with similar symptoms have been treated. Some even seem to be happy to accept the mysterious illness because it makes you work harder and with more endurance. But this apparent advantage comes at a high price, as Margot soon finds out the hard way…
An over-stressed burger fryer is the first victim!
In recent years, female directors in French cinema have tried their hand at body horror. In particular, Julia Ducournau in “Raw” and “Titane” and Coralie Fargeat in “The Substance” have reinterpreted the genre from a feminist perspective – a trend that Marion Le Corroller is now also joining. The Franco-Belgian has already made a few short films; “Sanguine” is now her debut feature-length film, which is characterized by an astonishingly confident use of cinematic means. The very first sequence indicates that things are going to be hard and bloody: In a burger shop, a young salesman goes completely crazy when an annoying influencer really wants to order something that isn’t on the menu. The seconds are ticking, the manager is urging us to hurry, the customers are waiting, disruptions are not foreseen in this system. The stress erupts into an outburst of violence and subsequent suicide, as the gunman slams his own skull onto a tabletop again and again and again (each time with a new, increasingly squishy mask).
This makes it immediately clear: Le Corroller definitely takes no prisoners! And so it continues, in the narrow corridors of the emergency room, which are clearly reminiscent of “The Shining” with their striking white and red design. Soon Margot is among the victims and tries to treat herself, but hardly any of the other victims want to provide information. Only a stressed, poorly paid freelance journalist (an idea that caused knowing laughter at the press screening) puts them on the trail (but not necessarily on the way to rescue). Once or twice Le Corroller seems to get lost in subplots; in particular, an emerging affair between Margot and her colleague Pauline (Kim Higelin) seems unnecessary. But it is precisely in the last third that she finds her way back on track and builds up to a grandiose excess.
The director successfully mixes hard body horror about really disgusting mutations that proliferate on bodies with a social satire in which the professional (excessive) demands exact a high price. At some point the work steps simply can no longer be accelerated or rationalized – and if you do try, “Sanguine” shows in an impressively fucked up way what can happen!
Conclusion: Wrapped in first-class, merciless body horror, the modern workplace mutates into a real nightmare in the bitter social satire “Sanguine”.
We saw “Sanguine” at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere as a midnight film.