Un prophète (2009)
Directed by Jacques Audiard

Film Review

Five full-length films in 15 years in not a particularly impressive tally.  Few directors with such a low output can expect to achieve lasting recognition in their own country, let alone on the international stage.  But if one of these five films should be considered the most significant French film in half a century and the best gangster film since Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), that might be a different matter... 

Jacques Audiard may not be the most prolific of filmmakers but in the last few years he has earned a reputation as one of the most exciting talents in cinema today.   His forte is the noir thriller, where he has earned acclaim for two notable films: Sur mes lèvres (2001) and De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (2005) (a.k.a. The Beat That My Heart Skipped).  These two films may have won warm praise from the critics, but this is nothing compared with the reaction Audiard aroused with his next film, Un prophète, a thriller with a brutally realist edge.

Un prophète is an extraordinary film, harrowing in its content, exhilarating in its design, one of the most compelling two and half hours of cinema you are ever likely to experience.  Combining a slick dreamlike stylisation with a viscerally harsh sense of reality, the film overwhelms its audience with sights and sounds that convey the experiences of the main protagonist, an adolescent whose indoctrination into the world of organised crime feels like a drugs-induced fantasy in an abattoir.  The moral subtext is obvious but not laboured: prisons exist not to reform criminals, but to create even harder criminals.  This is not fiction, but a reality that we ignore at our peril.

Audiard's inspired mise-en-scène is complemented by a superlative screenplay and some equally laudable work in the photography and editing departments.  The film's emotional power and stark realism owe as much to the two central performances, from Niels Arestrup and Tahar Rahim.   Arestrup's portrayal of an unflinching gangster boss calls to mind Marlon Brando's Don Corleone, a quietly menacing presence that invites the same trepidation and respect as an unexploded bomb. 

Arestrup is impressive here but this is unquestionably Rahim's film, a remarkable achievement for an actor who is new to cinema, with just a few minor supporting roles under his belt.  One of the strengths of this film is how convincingly Rahim portrays the transformation of his character, from a meek and pretty inoffensive teenager into a fully-fledged gangster.  We are scarcely aware that the transformation is happening, and so Rahim retains our sympathy.  When we realise, in that final ironic shot, the monster that his character has become, we can only recoil in horror.  Evil can only be seen from a distance.

Un prophète was the most critically acclaimed French film of 2009, and looks as though it may end up being rated the top French film of the decade.  It won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes that year and practically swept the board at the 2010 Césars ceremony, taking awards in nine categories.  Not surprisingly, Jacques Audiard won the Best Director César, whilst the film itself won the Best Film award.  Niels Arestrup was recompensed with the Best Supporting Actor award whilst Tahar Rahim walked away with two Césars, for Best Actor and Most Promising Actor, the perfect springboard for a major international screen career.  Un prophète also won the Best Foreign Film BAFTA in 2010 but failed to win the Oscar it was nominated for in this same category.

Barely a year after its original French release, Un prophète has already been accorded the status of a classic.  A gripping noir thriller that has helped to reinvigorate the art of cinema, it offers a salutary warning on where our society may be heading, thanks to a prison system that is failing to do its job properly and the emergence of a generation for whom ultra-violent criminality has an irresistible allure.  But this is no vision of the future, this is where we are today...

Film Synopsis

Malik El Djebena is a 19-year-old troublemaker who suddenly finds himself in a concrete Hell that will change his life forever.  As he begins his six-year long prison sentence, Malik falls in with a group of Corsican gangsters led by the Mafia boss César.  To earn their protection, the youngster must kill a rival gangster.  This done, Malik becomes Cesar's faithful acolyte, performing errands for him during his day releases.  These experiences soon begin to alter Malik, and he becomes as tough and uncompromising as the gangsters he works for.  By the time he leaves prison, Malik is well on the way to creating a criminal empire of his own...