SYNOPSICS
Un prophète (2009) is a French,Arabic,Corsican movie. Jacques Audiard has directed this movie. Tahar Rahim,Niels Arestrup,Adel Bencherif,Reda Kateb are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2009. Un prophète (2009) is considered one of the best Crime,Drama movie in India and around the world.
Nineteen year-old Franco-Algerian Malik El Djebena is just starting his six year prison sentence in Brécourt. Although he has spent the better part of his life in juvenile detention, this stint is his first in an adult prison. Beyond the division of Corsicans and Muslims in the prison (the Corsicans who with their guard connections rule what happens in the prison), he has no known friends or enemies inside. He is just hoping to serve his time in peace and without incident, despite having no prospects once he's out of jail since he's illiterate and has no support outside of the prison. Due to logistics, the head of Corsican inmates, a sadistic mafioso named César Luciani, co-opts Malik as part of the Corsicans' activities, not only regarding what happens inside the prison, but also continued criminal activities outside. The innocent Malik has no idea what to do but cooperate. This move does not sit well with the other Corsicans, who only see Malik as a dirty Algerian, and the Muslims ...
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Un prophète (2009) Reviews
You live in prison and what you live isn't giving any concessions to reality.
"Un prophète" tells the story of a somewhat naive but intelligent young inmate from Arabic origins who rises through the criminal ranks to become a big boss. Serve with an outstanding cast and an almost exclusively males and non-professional actors, the film of Jacque Audiard manages to prove that you don't need a so called bankable actor/actress in order to make a masterpiece. What you need is a vision, an excellent scenario and a perfect casting. Set mainly within prison walls, the film depicts the prison "career" of Malik el Djebena, a 19-year-old man of North African origin who was sentenced to six years in prison. At his arrival in prison, Malik (wonderfully played by Tahar Rahim) is forced by Cesar Luciani, a Corsican kingpin (played by the excellent Niels Arestrup) to kill a prisoner named Reyeb. What follows is a powerful film that grabs your attention from beginning to end. The film works on so many levels and yet achieves excellence in all of them. "Un prophète" works as a social description of the hellish atmosphere one could encounter in prison. The promiscuity, the dirtiness, the drug, the sex, the corruption are detailed through very well drawn out characters and situations. You live in prison and what you live isn't giving any concessions to reality. "Un prophète" is a thrilling gangster film deprave of any sort of Manichaeism. Between the buildings of a drug business, the contract to assassinate a mafia kingpin, the negotiation with a local mobster and the rise to power of a young bandit or "racaille", the film manages to link every single story and wrap them all in one big and dark vision of what the French society can also produce. Eventually the film triggers so many emotions; in 150 minutes the audience balances from bitterness to injustice and from violence to peace. Jacques Audiard and Stéphane Fontaine (director of photography) controlled with mastery both the "mise en scène" and the cinematography. Using here stop motion there torch like effect and opposing darkness to light they cut out possible definitions for the words loyalty or betrayal, friendship or servitude, destiny or curse. The director of the excellent "de battre mon coeur s'est arrêté " and the very good "sur mes lèvre" signs here a haunting movie a unique cinematographic and emotional experience, a masterpiece.
Watch the Renaissance of French Cinema - a Must-See
One of the biggest surprises of 2009, Jacques Audiard's 'Un Prophète' is the best French film in a decade, garnering strong critical and word-of-mouth support and winning the Grand Prix in Cannes (which for years now means that it's the actual festival winner). The surprise is that the story is far from being original: a young Arab sentenced to (adult) prison for the first time is forced by a Corsican mafia boss running the strings there to do his bidding. By and by, he manages to use his underling position to his own advantage. So it's a typical hard-boiled underdog story - what makes it so great then? 'Un Prophète' doesn't differ much in style from the French films of late, which were often so hell-bent on displaying life as a gritty and boring affair, and resorted to radical violence to underscore this point, that spectators were almost forced to feel disgusted, which was then claimed to be a denominator of the film's artistic success. This phenomenon has been called 'New French Extremity'. What Jacques Audiard has done is to combine the aesthetics of this trend with the traditions which once made the French film industry the most power- and meaningful in Europe, namely to focus on the relationship of the leading actors. The result is a film that is totally engaging from the first minute, because it entrusts the actors with the task of transforming the script into something of their own making. And boy oh boy, Tahar Rahim does that job. A newcomer with a little bit of TV experience, his performance carries 'Un Prophète' with amazing vigor. It's a big chance, and he takes it. Would this be an English-language film, he'd be a surefire contender for the awards. His nemesis is portrayed by Niels Arestrup in an equally flawless, yet much more routinized way, which juxtaposes the two characters perfectly. Add to this the sophisticated editing already present in Audiard's last film 'De battre mon coeur s'est arreté' (2005), and you have the best European film of 2009, in spite of a story that you will most likely have seen dozens of times already. If you usually don't like European movies, or if you have only time to see one a year, watch this one - you won't regret it.
Excellent tough & rough prison gangster film
Un Prophète :: Jacques Audiard :: France :: 2008 : 2h35 A young man is being admitted into prison. The scars on his body and face betray a violent past. He can barely read and write. He has no friends. Malik (Tahar Rahim) is 19 years old. Out on the concrete courtyard, he is recruited by the ruthless Corsican mafioso César (Niels Arestrup) to kill a rival passing through their prison. Malik is beaten into submission. His life could have ended right there and then. But that is not how it was to be. Malif comes out the corner fighting. Most of the film is concrete slabs and dirt. There is the constant murmur of the rumours passed around in Arabic and Corsican if it is not in banlieue slang French. And then there is the violence. Nobody gets punished because nobody interferes. Even when inmates get killed there is no indication that they are being investigated. The detainees are all on their own. We do see the state's legal machinery operating in the background with lawyers and judges shifting paper. We see the inmates work in the prison factory sowing clothes. We see the willing bullies being schooled. But the penitentiary staff shine mostly in their absence. Malik knows it is going to be a long 6 years. He takes what he can get, and tries to make the best of himself. He could have made an excellent career for himself in the army, if life had been different. He has the adaptability, the patience, the dedication, the intelligence and the lack of moral restraint to make it far, in the right framework. If only he had been in an organisation which could contain and direct him, rather than unleash him, as prison did. We see him slowly becoming a man to be reckoned with, creating his own new order. Make no mistake, this young man is taking you along to the bitter end. Un Prophète is a tough film to watch, but immaculately constructed. I can not claim to have captured the full finesse of the all the criminal dealings, but it does not matter. The audience is thrown into the story as the young Malik is. Thrown in, to live it with him. And live it, you will. It is a masterfully made film with a clever script, an excellent cast and a surprising attention to detail. A rare pearl in the genre, bound to be as rewarded as director Audiard's previous De Battre mon coeur s'est arrêté, which won no less than 8 Césars! (incitatus.org)
One of the best films of 2009
A 19-year-old man of North African origin is sentenced to six years in prison for assaulting a police officer. When he enters prison, he is naïve, shy, and almost withdrawn and cannot read or write. When he leaves six years later, he has become a self possessed, educated individual, capable of controlling his own destiny as well as that of others. Jacques Audiard's (Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped) A Prophet, winner of the Grand Prix Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, is an engrossing coming-of-age drama set in a French prison in which Malik el Djebena (Tahar Rahim), a Muslim estranged from his own community, is recruited into the ruling Corsican Mafia and eventually becomes a gang leader himself. Though deeply involved in nefarious and often bloody activities, the genuineness of his personality makes him an appealing and sympathetic character and adds depth to a riveting experience. Based on a story by screenwriter Abdel Raouf Dafri, the film clocks in at a lengthy 150 minutes but never feels padded or stretched out. Unable to film in an actual prison location (because they were all being used), Audiard had his own prison built in an industrial area of Paris. As he explains, "Watching it take shape helped us build the prison in our minds, as well." When Malik first arrives, he is singled out by Corsican Mafia boss César Luciani (Niels Arestrup) and told to kill a fellow Muslim prisoner Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi) by slitting his throat with a razor blade. If he refuses, he will be killed himself. Once the job is done in as brutal a killing scene as you will ever witness or want to witness, Malik is put under César's protection, becoming the Corsican's Arab who carries out menial tasks for him inside the prison. Beset by visions of the deceased Reyeb, Malik, however, soon begins to educate himself on many levels, not only learning to read, but teaching himself Corsican and learning details of Luciani's business. More importantly for his survival, he learns how to operate among the various prison subcultures with their various rituals and codes of honor though he is still an outsider, not fully trusted by either group. There is no shortage in the film of details involving drug traffic, sex, payoffs, and general prison corruption, things we have seen before, yet the level of our personal involvement remains high due to the heart pounding set pieces and the compelling performances of the lead actors. Slowly, César raises the level of jobs given to Malik, affording him the opportunity to leave the confinement of the prison on several day passes, one involving his first ever flight to Marseilles to negotiate with another Mafia kingpin. Little by little, Malik sets up his own enterprises with his friend Ryad (Adel Bencherif) who is suffering from cancer, and begins to establish his independence from the Corsicans. He becomes known as a prophet when he survives a bizarre car crash, an incident that has been foretold in a fantasy sequence. Supported by a compelling original score by Alexandre Desplat and brilliant cinematography by Stéphane Fontaine, A Prophet is violent, often ugly and difficult to watch, but is redeemed by the quality of the direction, the outstanding performances by Rahim and Arestrup and the honesty in which it handles the conflicts among ethnic groups, conflicts that mirror French society as a whole. Tahar Rahim is little more than a cipher at the beginning, yet acquires considerable strength of character by the end of the film. According to Audiard, "When I looked into his eyes there was no melancholy, no tragedy, just someone very open, very light, very full of life." A mixture of gritty reality, flights of fancy, identity exploration, and psychological character study, A Prophet is one of the best films of 2009.
A Magnificent film
One of the truly great films of 2010, "A Prophet" is an unforgettable account of a young man's experiences in a French prison. Malik El Djebena is only 19 when he's sentenced to six years in prison for a crime he claims he didn't commit. Though an Arab, Malik becomes the cat's-paw for an aging Corsican mob boss named Cesar Luciani whose influence in the prison has begun to wane as more and more Muslims are brought in to swell the prisoner ranks. Eventually, the ever-resourceful Malik finds a way to straddle the lines separating the various factions in the prison, while at the same time partnering with his buddy to run a hashish operation when he's out on his frequent 24-hour leaves. The beauty of "A Prophet" is that we really get the sense that, had he been dealt a halfway decent hand in life, Malik might have actually been a kind, caring person, instead of the lost soul that he's become. But the lack of any parental influence in his life, his illiteracy, and now his consignment to prison life have left him with few viable options other than to become involved in mayhem and crime. He's horrified by the fact that, as a kind of loyalty test early on, Luciani forces him to murder in cold blood a man he doesn't know and might even like under other circumstances. And there are heartbreaking moments throughout where we sense the goodness in Malik's tortured soul. His appreciation of simple kindnesses, his attempts at learning to read, his childlike wonder as he looks out of a plane window for the first time, his tenderness with a buddy's newborn son - all go a long way towards mitigating some of the truly despicable acts of violence and murder he's called upon to do. The brilliant screenplay wisely refuses to judge Malik; it simply presents the options and parameters that have been given to him by fate, society, nature, what have you - and watches as he maneuvers through, in and around them in order to survive. Harsh and brutal as this film can be at times - for it never shies away from portraying what life is like in a prison setting - it is in those more lyrical moments, the ones in which we are allowed to see into the heart of this young man, that "A Prophet" achieves true masterpiece status. Tahar Rahim rises to the challenge in a brilliantly understated, award-worthy performance as Malik, capturing our sympathy and concern throughout. Niels Arestrup is also outstanding as the brutal and demanding Luciani, as is Adel Bencherif as Malik's one friend from prison who serves as both a positive and a negative influence on the young man. Directed with unerring conviction and power by Jacques Audiard, "A Prophet" is a cinematic work of art - and a movie not to be missed.