Synopsis
To be blunt, compress the entire prison series, Oz, into a mean, 150-minute art film, and you have A Prophet. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, this fifth feature from Jacques Audiard (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) tells the pulpy tale of an uneducated 19-year-old French Arab (Tahar Rahim) who just barely survives his introduction into the caste system at an especially brutal prison. "Luckily," he is taken under the evil wing of a Corsican lord (Niels Arestrup) before the film descends into graphic power struggles within the prison walls and with criminals hustling in the free world. Audiard claimed he was making the "anti-Scarface." If by that, he meant a naive young man climbs to the top of the crime world on a pile of corpses, only grounded in poetic realism and not grandiosity: sentence served! In French, Arabic and Corsu with English subtitles.
Jacques Audiard---France---2009---155 mins.
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Technical
Subtitles: English
Language & Sound: French, Arabic, Corsu
Release Date: Aug 03, 2010
Reviews of 'Prophet, A (Un Prophete)'
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- Currently 5/5 Stars.
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Rubes#1
This is a harrowing movie. It is so male, it is terrifying. I had to fast forward a few times
because of violent scenes I did not want to see--the fast forwarding lasted barely seconds so
I only missed what I wanted to miss. We see the transformation of 19 year old Malik ushered
into the brutal dog-eat-dog prison system. (BTW, interesting to see how different French
prisons are from US prisons--how many times we see inmates carrying baguettes of bread! at
least they're not wearing berets!) The prison is culturally/gang divided between Corsicans
and Arabs, and further divided between Arabs and Muslims. Our guy manages to cross the
barriers including picking up the Corsican dialect--partly his innocence and partly his
ambition. At 2-1/2 hours you would think there would be lulls but nary a slow-down. The
music by Desplat (who also did The Ghost Writer which I just saw yesterday) is perfect. There
is camera work to die for, twisting bodies in slo-mo, when Malik is temporarily deafened, the
movie goes on but he can't hear any of it. His relationship to The Corsican almost
approaches tender, or so we think, but only when The Corsican (Niels Arestrup--superb) is
left without his gang does he allow for the possibility of needing Malik. The end is a killer
ending. It is ambiguous and it forebodes menace and disaster.
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- Currently 4/5 Stars.
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bmac#1
A wonderful movie featuring wonderful performances and a complex but satisfying narrative. I found
the twisting ending particularly haunting. What starts out as a gratifying conclusion to the tale turns
into a suggestion of tragedy.
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- Currently 2/5 Stars.
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Daniel#7
A disappointing film. There are powerful moments in following the central character through his life in prison. But the film goes on too long, and in the end seems pointless. The prophet character remains ill-defined throughout -- is he supposed to be a hero or a villain? Is the film a political call for reform or a conventional prison melodrama? It's hard to tell.
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Most Helpful Reviews
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- Currently 5/5 Stars.
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Michael#69
This film has a tight, tense structure that illustrates the limited options of a young convict's life in prison. The touches of magical realism were unexpected (very subtle, unobtrusive, yet key to the protagonist's psychology), as was the beauty of the film (much like the beauty of Hunger amidst the desperate political struggle). My first Audiard film, I will seek out his other ones!
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