Un prophète

A juvenile delinquent named Malik (Tahar Rahim) goes to prison after spending most of his up-growing in juvenile correctional facilities. Malik soon learns that he's no longer a small fish in an aquarium, but a fry in an ocean. And swimming with the big fish is quite a different state of affairs as he is bound to discover.

Pic's protagonist is recruited by the Corsican gang and being an Arab by appearance (granted, apparently not religiously), he continues to live as an outsider of not only society but also fellow inmates as he has done most of his life. But he continues to float and find his way behind the bars.

In the exquisite direction of Jaques Audiard, the film accelerates well through good character development and profound script. The education of Malik is in my opinion one of the main pillar of the film because it is an education on so many levels. Of least to get ahead in business. Dirty business, granted, but it is business nonetheless.

It's the small things that distinguishes this little gem from many other movies on prison culture. It has to be, Audiard knows this and has created yet another great piece of cinema for his fans.

One of the truly great films of 2010, "A Prophet" is an unforgettable account of a young man's experiences in a French prison.

Malik El Djebena is only 19 when he's sentenced to six years in prison for a crime he claims he didn't commit. Though an Arab, Malik becomes the cat's-paw for an aging Corsican mob boss named Cesar Luciani whose influence in the prison has begun to wane as more and more Muslims are brought in to swell the prisoner ranks. Eventually, the ever-resourceful Malik finds a way to straddle the lines separating the various factions in the prison, while at the same time partnering with his buddy to run a hashish operation when he's out on his frequent 24-hour leaves.

The beauty of "A Prophet" is that we really get the sense that, had he been dealt a halfway decent hand in life, Malik might have actually been a kind, caring person, instead of the lost soul that he's become. But the lack of any parental influence in his life, his illiteracy, and now his consignment to prison life have left him with few viable options other than to become involved in mayhem and crime. He's horrified by the fact that, as a kind of loyalty test early on, Luciani forces him to murder in cold blood a man he doesn't know and might even like under other circumstances. And there are heartbreaking moments throughout where we sense the goodness in Malik's tortured soul. His appreciation of simple kindnesses, his attempts at learning to read, his childlike wonder as he looks out of a plane window for the first time, his tenderness with a buddy's newborn son - all go a long way towards mitigating some of the truly despicable acts of violence and murder he's called upon to do. The brilliant screenplay wisely refuses to judge Malik; it simply presents the options and parameters that have been given to him by fate, society, nature, what have you - and watches as he maneuvers through, in and around them in order to survive.

Harsh and brutal as this film can be at times - for it never shies away from portraying what life is like in a prison setting - it is in those more lyrical moments, the ones in which we are allowed to see into the heart of this young man, that "A Prophet" achieves true masterpiece status.

Tahar Rahim rises to the challenge in a brilliantly understated, award-worthy performance as Malik, capturing our sympathy and concern throughout. Niels Arestrup is also outstanding as the brutal and demanding Luciani, as is Adel Bencherif as Malik's one friend from prison who serves as both a positive and a negative influence on the young man.

Directed with unerring conviction and power by Jacques Audiard, "A Prophet" is a cinematic work of art - and a movie not to be missed.

At times hard to watch but in the end you come out with the feeling of having watched a masterpiece.

Perfect acting, scenario, directing, cinematography & sound...

This is definitely not a Hollywood production, but the best of what french cinema can be.

Audiard is a great director, having previously made "Read my lips" which i also recommend.

The main actor Tahar Rahim is a revelation, keep an eye on him in the future.

Niels Arestrup is also quite good in his role as a corsican crime boss

The problem with praise is that so much is said and so much is built up that at times it can be quite imposing for me to approach a film to watch it for what it is. This happened with A Prophet, which is why it took me over a year to get around to watching it. The uniformly great praise and the awards all built this film up in my head as something that would be worthy, perhaps a little arty and maybe even deliberately inaccessible (which can be the case with some films that critics gush over – partly I think it makes them appear smart). Also, lest we forget, it is also in French and runs to almost two and a half hours long. However I decided it had been on my queue for far too long as it was and recently I sat to watch it.

What I found was not an art film, not a pretentious film, not a "foreign" film but rather just a really well told story of a young man falling into a life of crime but then climbing and scheming his way up it. The rather breathless manner in which the film has been discussed doesn't do it any favours because, if you ignore all the words, the film is just this and it does it very well indeed. The Malik at the start of the film is very different from the Malik in the later stages, even though only a few years have passed. The difference is very well handled and we see him grow in his abilities, his confidence and also his ruthlessness. All of this occurs in a consistent flow of narrative that begins with him being forced into a violent act (one that stays with him) but then making himself useful and starting his own things on the side. In terms of narrative events it is very well structured and easy to follow, but it is the emotional journey that adds layers to it.

I read one critic compare the journey from (comparative) innocence to that taken by Michael Corleone in The Godfather and, while the details are more low-key and grubby, it is a fair comparison. Malik is fascinating as he stresses himself sick over his first kill, but just as fascinating when playing the odds with the various factions he straddles with influence. He is never free of beatings or risk, but he engages in the way he deals with it all with confidence and a growing willingness to do what is required. Director Audiard delivers it all with a range of styles – most of which work. At times it feels very seedy and grey in colour, particularly at the start and the camera sits in corners and watches from afar; this then contrasts with other scenes where it owes a debt to Scorsese in the use of music and montages (Malik being put in role of porter to the sound of Nas being a sudden but effective change in style). I wasn't really feeling the use of words on the screen – it didn't seem to add much and it did feel a bit too derivative, but other than this I had no complaints.

The performances are mostly very strong. The standout is of course Rahim in the lead role; he convinces in his journey and he pitches his development just right across the film – never going too far from who he is, not becoming a different person, but just showing growth and change in small but important ways. Arestrup is nearly as good as the cruel but fading lord of the prison while Bencherif, Yacoubi and many others make convincing supports. The world of the prison also feels very real and very threatening and even the extras add to the feeling of the place.

A Prophet is a great film: a crime story with strong characters, well developed plot and a constant feel of risk and threat without being over the top or losing touch with the gritty real feel of the prison world. Directed with style (but not too much style) the film uses the cast well and produces a roundly engaging and satisfying story. Perhaps a bit too over-hyped and made out to be way more than it is, it is still very much seeing and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Goodfellas and other such crime stories.

One of the biggest surprises of 2009, Jacques Audiard's 'Un Prophète' is the best French film in a decade, garnering strong critical and word-of-mouth support and winning the Grand Prix in Cannes (which for years now means that it's the actual festival winner). The surprise is that the story is far from being original: a young Arab sentenced to (adult) prison for the first time is forced by a Corsican mafia boss running the strings there to do his bidding. By and by, he manages to use his underling position to his own advantage. So it's a typical hard-boiled underdog story - what makes it so great then?

'Un Prophète' doesn't differ much in style from the French films of late, which were often so hell-bent on displaying life as a gritty and boring affair, and resorted to radical violence to underscore this point, that spectators were almost forced to feel disgusted, which was then claimed to be a denominator of the film's artistic success. This phenomenon has been called 'New French Extremity'. What Jacques Audiard has done is to combine the aesthetics of this trend with the traditions which once made the French film industry the most power- and meaningful in Europe, namely to focus on the relationship of the leading actors. The result is a film that is totally engaging from the first minute, because it entrusts the actors with the task of transforming the script into something of their own making.

And boy oh boy, Tahar Rahim does that job. A newcomer with a little bit of TV experience, his performance carries 'Un Prophète' with amazing vigor. It's a big chance, and he takes it. Would this be an English-language film, he'd be a surefire contender for the awards. His nemesis is portrayed by Niels Arestrup in an equally flawless, yet much more routinized way, which juxtaposes the two characters perfectly. Add to this the sophisticated editing already present in Audiard's last film 'De battre mon coeur s'est arreté' (2005), and you have the best European film of 2009, in spite of a story that you will most likely have seen dozens of times already.

If you usually don't like European movies, or if you have only time to see one a year, watch this one - you won't regret it.