ScreenWize

Unquestionably the best film I saw at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and winner of the Grand Prize of the Jury (better known as coming second), A Prophet is an extraordinary prison-based crime drama that is destined to be one of the finest works of the decade. In a year with little top-class French cinema to be found, this is exhilarating, intelligent, gritty and ruthlessly surprising - managing to capture the harrowing and detailed complexities of a young man’s life behind bars, and his rise through the criminal hierarchy.

Malik (Tahir Rahim) – an illiterate French-Arab - starts this story as a hopeless petty criminal picked up for a drug charge and sentenced to six years in jail. Trying unsuccessfully to keep a low profile he is forced to choose between the Corsican mafia and the Arab brotherhood, the two gangs that dominate the prison’s malicious and corrupt culture. But slowly – ever so slowly – Malik comes to realise that he has the ability to play the most dangerous game of all – navigating through the deadly politics of organised crime on his own. The path is never easy, and Malik’s first test, set by Corsican boss Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrrup) is to murder a fellow Arab named Reyeb – a sequence that director Jacques Audiard builds with unbearable intensity. Malik passes the test and gains the trust of Luciani, but is haunted by the ghost of Reyeb for the rest of his days.

Besides its prize at Cannes – the film has picked up awards at Festivals across the world, many (including a French Lumiere Award) for Rahim’s breathtaking performance – tentatively transforming his under-confident Malik into a careful but ambitious man of substance. Audiard – a writer himself before turning to directing – wrote the screenplay with Thomas Bidegain, and his direction will leave you stunned, and enthralled. If you’d lost confidence in French language cinema recently - don’t miss this one.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon