31) A Prophet
Director: Jacques Audiard
Year: 2009
Plot Summary: A young boy, Malik El Djebena, is given a six year custodial sentence. Alone and vulnerable in the prison, he falls under the sway of a gang, led by Cesar Luciani, who control everything in the establishment. They offer Malik their protection as long as he kills his prison neighbour, a man about to go on trial against the crew. Reluctantly fulfilling the request, the young boy earns a place in the gang and slowly begins to develop a plan during his 6 year sentence to overthrow Cesar and take control of the prison for himself.
Jacques Audiard has created a modern classic with A Prophet. It takes several watches to fully appreciate it, but this prison drama is an exciting, tense, shocking, intelligent and unique study of French society based within the walls of a prison.
The first thing to mention is that the prison system in France is regarded as one of the worst in the world. They have a huge number of suicides, a huge number of murders, prisoners are mistreated by the staff, they are corrupt, dangerously overcrowded and have constantly broke The Human Rights Act. Audiard does an incredible job of bringing all these issues to light in A Prophet and exposing what really happens in the walls of these infamous prisons.
But that's not just the French director's intention in A Prophet, he also wants to turn a mirror on France itself and examine everything from the country's poverty to the racism between the many groups of people that live there; French, Italians, Egyptians and, of course, Arabs.
His anti-racism message is outlined right away in A Prophet by making the hero of the film, the emotional core who you side with right until the closing moment, an arab. It's something that is hardly even seen in a French movie as it's practically suicide for the film's box office intake. Even Michael Haneke's amazing thriller Hidden, which touches on France's guilt over the killings of hundreds of arab men on October 17th 1961, only features Arab characters in supporting roles. But Audiard finally does what nobody dared to do and it makes A Prophet a landmark film in the French cinema.
What is truly amazing though is not the film's exposure of a terrible aspect of France that is very rarely covered by the media or its daring message about racism, it's the fact that the director has been able to do it in a fashion that is exciting enough to grab the attention of people all over the world yet is brutal enough to show just how important these issues are. It's got a fantastic main character, is full of action and has moments of genuinely nail-bitting tension - especially in the first 30 minutes - but never loses sight of its aims and ambitions.
Aside from what its intentions are, however, is A Prophet any good? The answer is an undeniable yes. Even if you couldn't care less about the message of the movie, it's hard not to be enthralled by Malik El Djebena's rise to power within the walls of the prison. Tahar Rahim, who plays the young inmate, does a terrific job of showing the boy develop from a scruffy, violent teenager into the man who is able to bring down the reign of the sadistic Cesar Luciani and take control of the yard for himself. This rise to power is perfectly captured in one of A Prophet's final scenes in which Malik, now the leader, observes Luciani alone on his bench that is usually surrounded by people and stripped of his authority and position.
The film is full of breathtaking moments like this. The contrast of the outside world from the prison is a breathe of fresh air in the scenes where Malik gets day leave; the brightness, the colour and the openness are almost overpowering after 90 minutes of claustrophobia and bleakness. It perfectly places you in the character's shoes.
Moreover, the 40 Days And 40 Nights sequence towards the end of the film, in which the gang tear themselves apart while Malik is locked away in solitary confinement, is one of those great cinematic moments that you are refused to see. Like Bill Murray's whisper to Scarlett Johansson before he leaves in Lost In Translation that we don't here, or the inaudible threat that Daniel Plainview utters to Eli Sunday after he ridicules him in front of the town in There Will Be Blood, the scene plays on your imagination and lets you wonder what must have happened, only showing us the after-effects.
But the most amazing moment of A Prophet is when Malik leaves the prison and is given the items he had on him when he first arrived. Now the powerful, rich leader, he opens the box to find nothing but a folded 20 euro note. It's a beautiful contrast of who Malik was when he arrived and who he is when he leaves.
A masterpiece of the crime genre.
5/5
2 comments:
Oooh, I'll definitely see this now. I was on the fence on whether to make the effort but yeah. Fo' sho', bro.
Also, it's nice to see your group being randomly posted on the boards of IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000007/nest/164638780 (my user is TenthAvenueFreezeOut, 'course)
Oh my God! INCREDIBLE! Haha! I'll have to have a look and see how many people have joined since that post. :)
Yeah, A Prophet's a brilliant film. It gets better after a few viewings too as you begin to familiarise yourself with who everyone is. When I first watched it i was a little overwhelmed trying to remember all the names, faces, nationalities, etc.
But it's worth it in the end. :)
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