Prison movies can be just another style of horror film, and through punishment and agony, a rigid caste system and some exciting acting, "A Prophet" scores on every level. A French film about a Frenchman of Arab descent in a French prison, it won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival a year ago. It opens today, a searing, visceral experience, not for the tremulous or the weak of stomach.
Our hero, Malik, a gorgeous portrayal by Tahar Rahim, is demeaned and humiliated in the opening scene as guards strip-search him with cold efficiency. It was a minor crime, but no matter to the guards, who see someone with a darker skin as someone to be immediately and forcefully humbled. And before he has a chance to learn the ropes, he is spotted by Cesar Luciano (Julius Caesar/Lucky Luciano), whose group of Corsicans are the prisoners who run the prison, buying and cajoling guards, dealing drugs, cigarettes and other contraband. Niels Arestrup, superb in the part, is like a wily old lion, still strong enough to command, smart enough to get other people to do his dirty work.
He spots something in Malik, probably something pliable, and strikes like a cobra with an assignment to kill Reyeb, another prisoner. Malik, alone and without friends and protectors, does it in a scene brilliantly photographed by Stephane Fontaine, director of photography, and directed by Jacques Audiard. Malik hides the weapon, a double-edged razor blade, in his mouth, and when the scene ends, Malik and the audience are trembling, long after the victim has stopped twitching.
The illiterate Malik learns to read, advances in Cesar's ranks, discovers what power is all about. Audiard's brilliant film looks at more than just prisoners and guards. On various levels, this is a political film about repression and cruelty to the weak, and a film about France's political and social struggles for the last several generations, and a film about survival against long odds.
This is only Audiard's second film, but he's a born story-teller, a director who shows us what is going on rather than having actors make long speeches. He and Thomas Bidegain wrote the screenplay in association with Nicolas Peufaillet and Abdel Raouf Dafri, based on an idea by Dafri (that's what the credits say). A harrowing experience but an outstanding movie. Opens today at the Plaza Frontenac
–Joe