Crime as a Metaphor | A Prophet [Blu-ray] | Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup

When you're in prison you feel the Darwinian echo every single second! | A Prophet [Blu-ray] | Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup

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	• A Prophet [Blu-ray] Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup Sony Pictures Classics, 2010 average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The best creation yet from the brilliant French filmmaker Jacques Audiard

'A Prophet' settles it: Jacques Audiard is the best filmmaker working today. His previous two films (Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped) were superb, but 'A Prophet' is his best creation so far. For me, it's the best film of 2009. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film but was beaten out by El Secreto De Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes). I'll reserve judgment until I see that one, too, but it's hard to believe it's a better movie than Audiard's.

As another reviewer aptly notes on these pages, 'A Prophet' has more than subtle shades of 'The Godfather.' French Arab Malik (an amazing Tahar Rahim) starts the movie as a callow 19-year-old entering prison. Quickly, he's selected to carry out a hit by the Corsican gang that rules the prison. The hit itself is excruciatingly intense movie-making. The pressure was suffocating. [At least one fellow movie-goer left the theater and didn't return.]

After carrying out that task, Malik is protected by César Luciani (an equally mesmerizing Niels Arestrup) leader of the Corsicans in prison. In fact, Luciani effectively runs the prison. Thus begins a life for Malik in which the Corsicans see him as an Arab and the Arabs as a Corsican. But Malik proves himself more than an errand boy. As Malik is told by the character Reyeb, "the idea is to come out smarter than you came in." Reyeb is talking about book-smart intelligence, and - while Malik does take and excel at literacy training - Reyeb's epigram holds deeper meaning as well. Malik slowly builds confidence, bravado and cunning to the point where he's running a massively complicated scheme (both in and out of prison) in which he expertly plays off four sides against each other.

As we watch Malik's transformation, we see the transformation of the prison yard as well. César learns too well that you can't fight demographics. Starting with a band of 20+ loyalists, he first watches his team gutted by a Sarkozy decree moving a bulk of the Corsicans to another institution. Then, the yard turns more Arab. César starts relying on Malik more than he'd like. And when Malik puts his jaw-dropping in/out double-cross game into play, the last of César's inner circle turns on itself.

In thinking about this film, I realized just what a massive undertaking Audiard has unfolded story-wise. In even trying to capture the essence of all the critical plot points, this review could easily extend for pages. At the two-hour mark, I thought: "wow, it's going to take at least another 30 minutes to resolve all this drama." Sure enough, the movie clocks in at 2 hours 35 minutes. It's worth every minute of your time to see this masterpiece of cinema.

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Crime as a Metaphor

"A Prophet"

Crime as a Metaphor

Amos Lassen

Nineteen year old Franco-Arab Malik El Djebena is beginning a prison sentence of six years in Brecourt, France. He had been in and out of detention centers as a child but this is his first time in an adult prison. Behind the walls, the inmates are divided into Corsicans and Muslims and Malik has no friends or enemies there. He just wants to finish his sentence in peace and quiet even though he has no idea of what he will do once released. The head of the Corsicans, Cesar Luciani brings Malik into the Corsican fold and Malik has no idea what to do except to cooperate. Most of the Corsicans see him as a dirty Arab and the Muslims regard him as a traitor.
The key to film is one of the most brutal murders seen on film and it leaves the murderer shaking. We learn that Malik was not evil from birth but s shy and passive loser all of his life. He became what he became because of a life in prison. He is insecure and we are never sure why he is in prison and even though he claims that he is innocent, it really does not matter to the plot. When Malik is told to kill another prisoner, he messes it up but he becomes what is known as a survivor who will do whatever necessary to stay alive. Slowly Malik is transformed in prison due to Luciani's tutelage and this is his coming-of-age story which is sad, bleak and with no remorse.
We never know what goes on in Malik's head and we only know him by what he does. Played by Tahar Rahim, he is an enigma to us. He has been molded by Luciani ( Niels Arestrup) and he reveals nothing. This makes him a fascinating character.
The film is reminiscent of "The Godfather" but behind bars. Here a young Arab (similar to Michael Corleone) rises from innocence to corruption and the film is absolutely riveting as it looks at the inmate hierarchy and the gangland sage of the loss of innocence. Nominated for the Academy Award this year, this is a study of a guy you will not likely forget soon.

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When you're in prison you feel the Darwinian echo every single second!

A prophet is a true masterpiece. It explores the raise and full development of a young newcomer into a prison.

He is just 19 and although he walks alone and tries to stand aloof from the crowd, he will be engaged very soon, when he is "hired" to make a job as part of the well known initiation's ritual in this human jungle where only the strong survives.

The movie is extremely violent filled of tension. Filmed according the patterns of "cinema verite" with camera in hand exploring the insights of every single movement, detail, grimace. A hopeless environment where nobody is safe and the friendship is absent because only the dark interests prevail.

The film is disturbing but absorbing. A dynamic plot that involves us a Corsican who intends to control the state of things until this huge wave works out as a enormous boomerang against him.

All the deserved awards for this singular masterwork. Admirable and impressing. You will never forget it.

There was a dark and somber film that dealt with a similar plot in the middle seventies (1975) "The brutalizing of Franz Blum" from the renowned German filmmaker Reinhard Hauff. It should be interesting to watch it to establish pertinent comparisons.

Tahar Rahim exhibits punch and actoral force. He reminds me to the young Pacino. He has in the screen a promisory future.

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A Prophet combines a Goodfellas mafia in a gritty French prison atmosphere

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1E7VJ5CY9SJIM Gina from Haunted Flower reviews "Un Prophete/A Prophet" directed by Jacques Audiard who cowrote the screenplay with Thomas Bidegain. It stars Tahar Rahim as Malik El Djebena, a young Arab man sent to a French prison where he is throw into prison politics between Corsicans and Muslims and must work his way up the hierarchy to survive.
[...]

Trajectory

Malik El Djebena enters prison a blank slate of nineteen. Immediately you realize his youth, his vulnerability in a savage, organized world that only sees him as fresh bait. He becomes the means to a murderous end for fellow inmate the Corsican mob and thus begins his descent into its servitude. Ironically, it is his position as their dirty Arab that provides his escape.

Propelled by stellar, stoic acting on Tahar Rahim's behalf, this story gripped me from blinded beginning to free end. Throughout the film you empathize with Malik. He's as much if not more a victim of his environment as he is a Machiavellian strategist gripping all opportunities available to him. It's not always pleasant to watch his endeavors, but they have an authenticity, a type of logic, that is followed until the end.

An amazing film that has made a fan where previously only an aversion to its subject matter existed, Un Prophéte deserves all the praise it gets.

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In his labyrinthine portrait of a convict turned kingpin, Jacques Audiard (A Self Made Hero) combines the grittiness of HBO's Oz with the shifting loyalties of a Leone western. After assaulting a cop, Malik (riveting newcomer Tahar Rahim) earns a six-year prison bid. Though illiterate, the 19-year-old speaks French and Arabic. Instead of congregating with the Muslim inmates, he keeps to himself, providing a perfect target for Mob boss César (Niels Arestrup of Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped), who makes him a Godfather-like offer he can't refuse: kill Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), an Arab set to testify against the Corsicans, or meet his maker. Malik decides he would prefer to live (in a surrealistic touch, Reyeb's ghost will haunt him for the rest of the film). In return, Luciani offers him protection but stops short of treating him like an equal. When Malik isn't serving coffee and making deliveries, he studies French and Corsu. With what he learns from the mobsters, he befriends two other loners, Ryad (Adel Bencherif) and Jordi the Gypsy (Reda Kateb), and starts a drug-smuggling operation. The years pass, and Malik takes advantage of his parole leaves to work both sides of the fence, and when the authorities transfer César's crew to a different facility, the balance of power shifts from the aging master to the model student. At 149 minutes, A Prophet feels more like a miniseries than a movie, but there are no dead spots, no wasted moments, resulting in Audiard's most fully realized vision to date. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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