A PROPHET (UN PROPHÈTE) A-
France Italy (150 mi) 2009 d: Jacques Audiard
Audiard has created a gripping prison drama that is unflinching in its near documentary portrait of prison life, following for an entire film a single prisoner, Malik (Tahar Rahim), who straddles the racial divide inside the prison, as he’s immediately pounced upon by the Corsican crime boss on the inside, Niels Arestrup as Luciani, to either kill another Arab prisoner to keep him from testifying or be killed himself. This effectively keeps him hated by both groups, Muslims and Corsicans, but Luciani, despite detesting his ethnicity, will keep him alive for small favors and as an errand boy, believing he is a valuable commodity because of his ability to operate in both worlds. The intense violence of the picture is immediate and wrenching, drawing us into the impossible choices awaiting prison inmates, where life or death choices hit them in the face before they have a chance to breathe and there is no easy out, where the actual hit is remarkably suspenseful in the lead up to the actual event, where Malik has to learn how to conceal a razor blade in his mouth, rehearsing endlessly as he spits blood into a sink, but he’s not prepared for the gentle calm and quiet that precedes the horror, which is shown with no embellishments. It’s a bloody and horrific ordeal, kill or die, where Malik is visited by the ghost of the deceased throughout the remainder of the picture, at times, his only remaining friend. With scars on his back as the only reference to his past, this young 19-year old is serving a 6-year sentence in an adult facility for unspecified crimes, with grim corridors and a sense of fear awaiting his every step.
The choice of character is unusual, as audiences are not used to seeing Arab gangsters, but as everyone else in prison is seen in an equally deplorable light, Malik’s quiet appeal is somewhat idealized, as he’s portrayed as a young innocent, unable to read or write, seen as a victim of circumstances precisely because we don’t know his past and have never seen any victims from his alleged crimes. Instead, what’s startling is that he’s a kid in a man’s world, used as a servant boy for the Corsicans who openly despise all Arabs, but they tolerate him because he did what they asked. Silently, he serves his time. But the audience grows curious about his dual ethnicity, an Arab despised by his fellow Arabs because he’s protected by and receives favors from the Corsicans, who are ethnic Italians born on what’s considered French soil. When a large group of Corsicans are freed, Luciani has fewer bodyguards, leaving him largely outnumbered by Arab inmates. What may seem puzzling to viewers is the degree to which prisoners continue to have full access to the premises, where smuggling drugs into the facility is routine, as is walking the grounds whenever they please, or running operations outside the prison, and where some prison cells are rarely even locked. This is what gives Luciani power over his competitors, as he owns the guards, but over time, the balance of power shifts, changes that Malik is keen to observe. The subtle interplay between these two characters gives the film depth, as Luciani was wise to choose Malik initially, but continues to bully and deride him, even as he matures, underestimating what attracted him in the first place, his ability to expand the limits of Corsican movement both inside and outside the prison.
The length of the film gives this a near epic stature, as much like a novel, it continually builds and expands into new territory while maintaining the meticulous attention to detail offered from the outset, keeping the focus on how Malik sees the world, as despite his criminal connections, it’s essential for the audience to view him sympathetically. That’s the beauty of the film. Despite being immersed inside the intensely grim and brutal world of prison, the last place an audience would choose to be, viewers will be captivated by Malik’s understated performance and his ability to adapt to the circumstances, sometimes on the spur of the moment when things could easily turn badly, but especially after he’s served more than half his time and Luciani arranges 12-hour leaves for him to conduct business on the outside. Just like in prison when he’s asked to perform Corsican dirty work, people are surprised to see an Arab kid, where he seems to have a guardian angel protecting him as he miraculously escapes from some tight spots with guns pointed at his head, but here as well, he’s expected to prove himself worthy, which is the heart of the film. Audiard does an excellent job altering the rhythms and style of his filmmaking, adding slow motion, dream sequences, a touch of surrealism, or contemporary music, continually keeping the audience off balance, never knowing what to expect, but never for a moment sacrificing the authenticity of the gritty material. The director and Thomas Bidegain adapted a screenplay initiated by Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicholas Peufaillit, deciding to set the entire film inside the confines of a prison, with only brief flourishes outside, as in much the same way we’re locked inside the mind of Malik, intimately connected to his innermost thoughts as he evolves along a journey from being a kid to a man. Though it’s set in a prison, the cultural reach of this film far surpasses our expectations, as it reveals a multi-ethnic side of France where political ramifications remain tense, where France is seen as the nation with the most significant racial turmoil in all of Europe, one that is undergoing its own question of identity. The camerawork by Stéphane Fontaine captures prison claustrophobia and is blisteringly real, while the music by Alexandre Desplat is exquisite, at times elegiac.
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