A Prophet
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A Prophet
Plot
An impressionable and vulnerable Arabic man gets thrust into a hellish prison, and ironically discovers greater opportunities for success than he ever possessed outside of the bars, in this violent melodrama from French succès d'estime Jacques Audiard (The Beat That My Heart Skipped). Tahar Rahim stars as Malik El Djebena, a petty criminal incarcerated for six years. Once inside and subjected to all of the standard brutalities that most prisoners endure, he is quickly educated in the "ways" of the prison, an institution torn violently between gangs of Corsicans and Arabs. The head Corsican thug, César Luciani (Niels Arestrup), offers Malik an ultimatum: either he rubs out an Arab inmate named Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), or he himself dies. Not only does Malik succeed with the hit, he earns the begrudging respect of the other prisoners, and -- after securing several days' release for good behavior -- uses off-time to forge a deeper and more multi-layered network of criminal ties than he ever dreamed possible. But as his own power and confidence grow, they threaten to outstrip César's own insistence on submission and obedience at all costs. ~ Nathan Southern, RoviReview
Most prison movies dredge up drama from the horrific institutionalized brutality behind bars, and while Jacques Audiard's crime drama A Prophet never shies away from the cruelty of an inmate's life, it focuses on much more than just that.The film stars Tahar Rahim as Malik, a 19-year-old Arab just beginning a six-year stretch in a French prison. He is without friends on the inside, and quickly comes under the thumb of leonine Corsican tough-guy César (Niels Arestrup), who orders Malik to kill a fellow inmate or be killed himself. After completing the task, Malik is haunted by visions of the man he murdered, but he also sets about taking classes in order to educate himself. As his complicated relationship with César evolves, the older man starts trusting Malik with more and more dangerous missions, including delivering information and money to people on the outside after Malik earns the right to take day trips away from the jail. All the while, Malik begins laying down the criminal network he will need to survive once he leaves the joint.
What elevates A Prophet above most other prison films are its structure and its protagonist. The movie is paced like a novel, with chapters that slowly build tension, rather than a series of events that hurtle toward a climactic prison break or riot. This is first and foremost a character study, and Malik -- shunned by fellow Arabs for being with the Corsicans, but never earning the respect of the Corsicans because he's Arab -- is a character worth studying. He's smart, though not well-educated; capable of violence; interested in sex but not love when it comes to women; and capable of supreme loyalty and self-sacrifice for men who have shown him the same.
There are religious elements to the story that might not translate to non-Arab viewers, but that hardly gets in the way of the film's powerful narrative grasp. As Malik learns to negotiate the complicated series of payoffs and favors he must perform to keep various factions within the prison from harming him, we get an understanding of why, for this character, rehabilitation doesn't exactly mean leaving a criminal life behind. He's a survivor, and we see how he learns to be a better criminal while arguably becoming a better man at the same time.
Malik changes substantially during his time in lockup, and Tahar Rahim signals those changes in very physical ways that range from his posture to his stride to the hardening of his facial features. He's matched well by Arestrup -- who comes off like a Corsican Ray Winstone. He's fearsome, forceful, and seemingly unstoppable -- the kind of bad guy who makes you root for Malik even when our hero still shows signs of being someone we ourselves would fear. And it is Rahim's spectacular and remarkably unshowy performance that keeps us riveted to this compelling and unflinching look at how prison can change someone. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
Cast
- Tahar Rahim - Malik El Djebena
- Niels Arestrup - César Luciani
- Adel Bencherif - Ryad
- Reda Kateb - Jordi le gitan
- Hichem Yacoubi - Reyeb
- Jean-Philippe Ricci - Vettorri
- Gilles Cohen - Prof
- Antoine Basler - Pilicci
Credit
Michel Barthelemy - Art Director, Richard Rousseau - Costume Designer, Virginie Montel - Costume Designer, Nathalie Vierny - Continuity, Serge Onteniente - First Assistant Director, Jacques Audiard - Director, Juliette Welfling - Editor, Pierre Chavialle - Hair Styles, Martine Cassinelli - Line Producer, Alexandre Desplat - Composer (Music Score), Frederique Ney - Makeup, Michel Barthelemy - Production Designer, Stephane Fontaine - Cinematographer, Brigitte Taillandier - Sound/Sound Designer, Jean-Paul Hurier - Sound/Sound Designer, Marc Doisne - Sound/Sound Designer, Francis Wargnier - Sound/Sound Designer, Jacques Audiard - Screenwriter, Thomas Bidegain - Screenwriter, Beatrice Mauduit - Post Production Supervisor, Jean-Michel Correia - Second Assistant Director, Roger Arpajou - Still Photographer, Abdel Raouf Dafri - From Idea By, Nicolas Peufaillit - From Screenplay by, Abdel Raouf Dafri - From Screenplay by| A Proper Violence (2011 Film), A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman (2007 Film) | |
| A Prowler in the Heart (1973 Film), A Proxima Vitima (1984 Film) |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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A Prophet
| A Prophet | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Jacques Audiard |
| Produced by | Martine Cassinelli Antonin Dedet |
| Written by | Jacques Audiard Thomas Bidegain Abdel Raouf Dafri Nicolas Peufaillit |
| Starring | Tahar Rahim Niels Arestrup Adel Bencherif |
| Music by | Alexandre Desplat |
| Cinematography | Stéphane Fontaine |
| Editing by | Juliette Welfling |
| Distributed by | UGC Distribution |
| Release date(s) | 16 May 2009 (Cannes) 26 August 2009 (France) |
| Running time | 150 minutes |
| Country | France Italy |
| Language | French Arabic Corsican |
| Budget | € 13 million |
| Box office | € 20 243 580 [1] |
A Prophet (French: Un prophète) is a 2009 French prison film directed by Jacques Audiard. Audiard claims that the film aims at "creating icons, images for people who don't have images in movies, like the Arabs in France,"[2] though he also had stated that the film "has nothing to do with his vision of society," and is a work of fiction.[3]
In 2010, the film was a nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.
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Contents
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Plot
Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), nineteen years old, French of Algerian descent, is sentenced to six years in prison for attacking police officers. Alone and illiterate upon his arrival, he falls under the sway of Corsican mobsters, led by Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup), who enforces a brutal rule.
The prison is divided between two main factions: the Corsicans and the Muslims. Malik keeps to himself. When Luciani forces him to be the unwilling assassin of Reyeb, a Muslim witness, Malik gains the protection of the Corsicans in spite of his race. Malik serves as a low-level servant to the Corsicans, who treat him with disdain. All the while, he is haunted by visions of the murdered Reyeb. When the bulk of the Corsicans are transferred or released, Luciani is forced to give Malik more responsibility. Having secretly learned Corsican, Malik acts as Luciani's eyes and ears in the prison. When Malik earns the privilege of day-long furloughs outside the prison, Luciani relies on him to conduct his business outside.
Ryad, a Muslim friend, teaches Malik to read and write, and the two become close. Ryad exposes Malik to his own heritage, allowing him to meet two other Muslims, Tarik and Hassan, increasing his power within the prison. Malik also becomes involved with a prison drug dealer, Jordi. When Ryad gains an early release due to his testicular cancer, the three partners organize a drug-running enterprise. But when Ryad is kidnapped by the drug dealer Latif, Malik tracks down Latif's partner inside the prison, kidnaps his family, and forces Latif's gang to release Ryad.
When Luciani discovers that Malik is using his furloughs for his own personal enterprise, he attacks him. Malik is sent to meet Brahim Lattrache in Marseille, another Muslim, who is involved in a deal between Luciani and the Lingherris, an Italian mafia group. Lattrache is bitter toward the Corsicans for the murder of Reyeb and holds Malik at gunpoint. When Malik spots a deer warning sign, he remembers a recent dream of deer running in the road. He tells his kidnappers that they are in danger of hitting a deer, which they promptly do. Lattrache is impressed by Malik, calling him a prophet and agreeing to do business with him instead of Luciani.
Luciani believes there is a mole in his organization and decides to use Malik to assassinate Jacky Marcaggi, the Don of the Corsican mafia, for secretly dealing with the Lingherris. But Malik and Ryad have their own plan for Marcaggi: they kill his bodyguards and dump him in a van with his enemy Vettori, Luciani's henchman. Malik takes refuge at Ryad's house with his wife and young son. Ryad's cancer has returned; his decision against more chemotherapy leaves him just six months and he gets Malik's promise to take care of his family when he's gone.
Upon Malik's return to the prison, he joins the Muslim side of the yard, having built a place of power within their faction. When Luciani tries to approach him, two Muslims intercept and beat him. The day of Malik's release he is met outside the prison by Ryad's wife and son. She invites him to take her son’s bedroom, and he walks with them to the bus stop, followed by a coterie of his protectors.
Cast
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Production
The film's screenplay, re-worked by Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain, was submitted to them by a producer, though the idea of making a film set in prison first came to Audiard after he had a film screened in a prison and was shocked by the conditions there.[3][4]
Audiard cast Niels Arestrup, featured in Audiard's previous film, The Beat that My Heart Skipped as the Corsican crime boss César Luciani, and met Tahar Rahim, who plays Malik, when they shared an automobile ride from another film set. To ensure the authenticity of the prison experience, Audiard hired former convicts as advisors and extras.[4]
Reception
A Prophet has received widespread critical acclaim. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 144 reviews, with an average score of 8.3/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system.[5] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 90, based on 30 reviews, which indicates "Universal acclaim".[6]
Reception of the film after its debut screening at 2009 Cannes Film Festival at the competition was good. A Prophet was picked as the best film of the festival by a group of sixteen English language critics and bloggers polled by the daily independent film news site indieWIRE.[7]
Karin Badt at The Huffington Post called it "refreshingly free".[3] Jonathan Romney of Screen International said that the film "works both as hard-edged, painstaking detailed social realism and as a compelling genre entertainment."[8]
Luke Davies of The Monthly criticized some of the film's stylistic methodology and content, asserting that the prophetic themes could have been stretched out, but he celebrated the film's central character and his well-executed "improbable rise from invisibility to dominance", describing "what gives [the film] such dynamic energy is the seamlessness with which this transition unfolds". Davies described the film's main achievement as conveying a character "someone we care about and gun for" who started life on screen as a blank slate.[9]
Awards
The film was the submission of France for the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film.[10] On 2 February 2010, when Academy Award nominations were announced, A Prophet received a nomination for Best Foreign Language film. The other four films in the category were Ajami, The Milk of Sorrow and The White Ribbon, and the eventual winner, El secreto de sus ojos.[11]
A Prophet won the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.[12] At the 53rd London Film Festival, it won the Best Film Award.[13][14] It won the Prix Louis Delluc 2009.[15] At the 63rd British Academy Film Awards, it won a BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language. It was nominated for 13 César Awards, tying it with three other films for the most nominations of any film in César history. It won 9 Cesars at the ceremony, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.[16] The film also won Best Foreign Film at the 13th annual British Independent Film Awards, which were held in London at the Old Billingsgate on 5 December 2010. [17]
A Prophet was also nominated for Best International Film at the 8th Irish Film and Television Awards, an award that went to The Social Network.
In 2010 Empire magazine ranked it at number 63 in its "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" list.[18]
References
- ^ Box Office Mojo page for A Prophet (Un prophète)
- ^ "Nous voulions fabriquer des héros à partir de figures que l’on ne connaît pas, qui n’ont pas de représentation iconique au cinéma, comme les Arabes par exemple." "Entretien avec Jacques Audiard, réalisateur d'Un prophète" (in fr). Dossier de presse. Cinemotions. http://www.cinemotions.com/modules/Interviews/interview/72081. Retrieved 2010-03-08.[dead link]
- ^ a b c Badt, Karin (May 18, 2009). "Cannes Favorite: Jacques Audiard's "The Prophet"". The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karin-badt/cannes-favorite-jacques-a_b_204409.html. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
- ^ a b Turan, Kenneth (May 19, 2009). "Jacques Audiard's 'A Prophet' has a buzz building". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/19/entertainment/et-cannes19. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
- ^ "A Prophet (Un prophete) - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1213205-prophet/. Retrieved September 17, 2011.
- ^ "A Prophet Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More at Metacritic". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. http://www.metacritic.com/movie/a-prophet. Retrieved September 11, 2011.
- ^ "Audiard's "Prophet" Hailed by Critics, Bloggers as Best of Cannes". indiewire. May 27, 2009. http://www.indiewire.com/article/audiards_prophet_hailed_by_critics_bloggers_as_best_of_cannes/. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
- ^ Romney, Jonathan (May 25, 2009). "A Prophet (Un Prophète)". screendaily.com. http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/cannes-reviews/-a-prophet-un-prophte/5001221.article. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
- ^ Davies, Luke (February 2010). "Lost Boys: Jacques Audiard's A Prophet and John Hillcoat's The Road". The Monthly. http://www.themonthly.com.au/arts-letters-luke-davies-lost-boys-jacques-audiards-a-prophet-and-john-hillcoat-2245.
- ^ Le Figaro.Fr
- ^ "CNN". March 5, 2010. http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/02/academy.award.nominations.list/index.html?hpt=C1.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: A Prophet". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/10905137/year/2009.html. Retrieved May 9, 2009.
- ^ "Winner of Best Film Award: A Prophet". bfi.org. Archived from the original on 31 October 2009. http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/999. Retrieved October 30, 2009.
- ^ "French film receives London award". bbc.co.uk. October 29, 2009. Archived from the original on 1 November 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8331245.stm. Retrieved October 30, 2009.
- ^ "Prix Louis Delluc : «Un prophète» sacré meilleur film 2009" (in French). Le Parisien. December 11, 2009. http://www.leparisien.fr/cinema/actualite-cinema/prix-louis-delluc-un-prophete-sacre-meilleur-film-2009-11-12-2009-741160.php. Retrieved December 11, 2009.
- ^ "2010 César Winners". César Awards. Archived from the original on 12 April 2010. http://www.lescesarducinema.com/#palmares/. Retrieved 2010-03-25.
- ^ "Winners announced: 13th Moët British Independent Film Awards". The Moët British Independent Film Awards=2010-12-5. http://bifa.org.uk/news/winners-announced-13th-moët-british-independent-film-awards.
- ^ "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema | 63. A Prophet". Empire. http://www.empireonline.com/features/100-greatest-world-cinema-films/default.asp?film=63.
External links
- (English) Official Website US
- (French) Official website
- A Prophet at the Internet Movie Database
- A Prophet at Metacritic
- A Prophet at Rotten Tomatoes
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by Gomorrah |
Grand Prix, Cannes 2009 |
Succeeded by Of Gods and Men |
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