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The contingencies of life change us, destroy us, make us different people. Malik (Tahar Rahim) has experienced firsthand the absence of parental figures, both inside and outside the limbo of a life of hardships. Illiterate, poor, alone, he finds himself sentenced to 6 years in prison. Is prison harsher than what's outside of it? Perhaps not, if you can control your implosiveness, if you accept the unwritten laws of a microcosm that eerily resembles the external macrocosm. One must adapt to "prison Darwinism," embrace the "law of the strongest," make friends with the right men...
Blackened walls, square rooms, hollow faces, vacant gazes. Audiard's camera lingers on close-ups, on movements that are never geometric, but often jerky, sudden, almost as if to recreate the oppressive precariousness of the prison environment. The core of the film is Malik, obviously uncomfortable, at least initially, in this new environment. Adaptation will come after what Van Gennep would have defined as a "rite of passage": the killing of an inconvenient witness to the mob, whose boss is inside the prison. Malik will become a sort of protégé of the boss César Luciani (an excellent Niels Arestrup), but he can never forget the man killed on command. His ghost will always be by his side, reminding him of where he started to climb the ranks inside the prison.
"A Prophet" is a dark, harsh film that doesn't shy away from punches to the gut. Inside and outside the walls of freedom, there's no difference. Audiard constructs a film where the outside world and life inside the prison are governed by the same exact laws of oppression, violence, and death. There's no sentimentalism, no prospects of redemption, no future, except in an ending that is not "closed" but leaves room for multiple interpretations. The extraordinary performance of the protagonist Tahar Rahim conveys onscreen what appears to be a story of internalized drama. The prison replicates the real world, with the usual stories of corruption, racism, circumventing rules. The state of things cannot be changed.
Audiard delivers monumental cinema, where each shot weighs like a boulder, perhaps reflecting too much in its basalt beauty and cruelty. The two and a half hours feel heavy, majestic, necessary but hard to digest. A sweep of awards, nominated for the Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, "A Prophet" is a feature film that must be seen. A morality that never touches the pathetic, that cuts like a razor blade. A small great cult of European cinema in recent years.
Blackened walls, square rooms, hollow faces, vacant gazes. Audiard's camera lingers on close-ups, on movements that are never geometric, but often jerky, sudden, almost as if to recreate the oppressive precariousness of the prison environment. The core of the film is Malik, obviously uncomfortable, at least initially, in this new environment. Adaptation will come after what Van Gennep would have defined as a "rite of passage": the killing of an inconvenient witness to the mob, whose boss is inside the prison. Malik will become a sort of protégé of the boss César Luciani (an excellent Niels Arestrup), but he can never forget the man killed on command. His ghost will always be by his side, reminding him of where he started to climb the ranks inside the prison.
"A Prophet" is a dark, harsh film that doesn't shy away from punches to the gut. Inside and outside the walls of freedom, there's no difference. Audiard constructs a film where the outside world and life inside the prison are governed by the same exact laws of oppression, violence, and death. There's no sentimentalism, no prospects of redemption, no future, except in an ending that is not "closed" but leaves room for multiple interpretations. The extraordinary performance of the protagonist Tahar Rahim conveys onscreen what appears to be a story of internalized drama. The prison replicates the real world, with the usual stories of corruption, racism, circumventing rules. The state of things cannot be changed.
Audiard delivers monumental cinema, where each shot weighs like a boulder, perhaps reflecting too much in its basalt beauty and cruelty. The two and a half hours feel heavy, majestic, necessary but hard to digest. A sweep of awards, nominated for the Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, "A Prophet" is a feature film that must be seen. A morality that never touches the pathetic, that cuts like a razor blade. A small great cult of European cinema in recent years.
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