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Niels Arestrup. Tahar Rahim. Jacques Audiard. These are not very resounding names in the movie industry. Rahim is nearly a complete stranger with only 3 acting jobs onto his account. You may have seen the French movie The Diving Bell And The Butterfly in which Arestrup portrayed Roussin, a man who’d been taken hostage for 4 years in Beirut. The most known person of this threesome is Audiard, who made his name in the European arthouse scene. His last effort, entitled De battre mon coeur s’est arête, was released in 2005. Now this unlikely threesome have joined forces for A Prophet, the Oscar-nominated prison drama.
A Prophet’s plot revolves around Malik El Djebena (Rahim), a young French Moroccan who is imprisoned for 6 years. The viewer only given scarce information as to why he was sentenced, but what becomes clear immediately is Malik’s utter lack of street smarts. A clumsy attempt to hide some money in his shoe fails and he has no friends whatsoever in prison. Things get worse when he is approached by the Corsican mafia, led by César Luciani (Arestrup). Malik is ordered to kill an inmate, Reyeb, residing in the same cell block. After having executed this ‘task’, albeit not without some difficulties, he is tolerated by the Corsicans, who have given him the function of errand boy. But Malik wants more. He is eager to learn and adapts easily to all kinds of situations. Gradually, Malik becomes a jack-of-all-trades, gains Luciani’s trust and climbs in the prison hierarchy.
A Prophet is basically a coming of age tale in the sense that we see this petty criminal evolve into a prison kingpin that cuts deals inside as well as outside of jail. It would have been easy to turn this into yet another movie stuffed with clichés such as rape in the shower, corrupt prison guards and riots. However, Audiard does not give into these temptations. Instead, the viewer is shown how the prison is run (smuggling drugs into jail, the different ethnic groups, the guards under Luciani’s thumb,…) and how Malik gradually finds his place. This is all presented in a very realistic way which leads the viewer to believe that these things can actually take place in a prison – any prison for that matter. The story does not feel forced at all and no judgement is passed on anyone. Malik and his friends do terrible things, but Audiard makes no effort to justify these actions. That is left up to the viewer to decide.
This realistic look and feel has some consequences, the most important one being the fact that Audiard indirectly criticizes the French prison system. Malik learns how to read and write while being held captive, develops his language skills and learns his trade (being a criminal mastermind), but there is no rehabilitation whatsoever. This is primarily because Malik initially cannot make his own choices due to the Corsicans approaching him very quickly. If he does not kill his fellow inmate, he will himself be killed. His self-preservation instinct ended up taking over, but at what cost?
Malik then discovers that he is actually quite good at being a criminal due to his eagerness to learn and open-mindedness. He does not mind dealing with various ethnic groups, as opposed to the Corsicans who consider the Arabs to be inferior human beings. So why would he not develop his skill set in order to function even better in this prison system? Eventually, Malik’s identity is nearly entirely shaped by prison life. He has become conditioned by prison. A beautiful example of this, is when Malik got checked out by a guard when boarding his plane. He instinctively sticks out his tongue, just like he has to do whenever he enters prison again when returning from his vacation day. This subtle touch showed how much prison had become a part of Malik. “You can take the man out of jail, but you cannot take jail out of the man” seems a fitting expression here.
There is so still so much more left to say - how Malik’s humanity is eroded by prison, how Reyeb acts as Malik’s conscience and whether Malik has in fact benefitted from prison life – but I will end this review by saying that this is a brilliant movie that leaves you wondering and philosophizing for days after having viewed it. Watch it if you have the chance.
A Prophet’s plot revolves around Malik El Djebena (Rahim), a young French Moroccan who is imprisoned for 6 years. The viewer only given scarce information as to why he was sentenced, but what becomes clear immediately is Malik’s utter lack of street smarts. A clumsy attempt to hide some money in his shoe fails and he has no friends whatsoever in prison. Things get worse when he is approached by the Corsican mafia, led by César Luciani (Arestrup). Malik is ordered to kill an inmate, Reyeb, residing in the same cell block. After having executed this ‘task’, albeit not without some difficulties, he is tolerated by the Corsicans, who have given him the function of errand boy. But Malik wants more. He is eager to learn and adapts easily to all kinds of situations. Gradually, Malik becomes a jack-of-all-trades, gains Luciani’s trust and climbs in the prison hierarchy.
A Prophet is basically a coming of age tale in the sense that we see this petty criminal evolve into a prison kingpin that cuts deals inside as well as outside of jail. It would have been easy to turn this into yet another movie stuffed with clichés such as rape in the shower, corrupt prison guards and riots. However, Audiard does not give into these temptations. Instead, the viewer is shown how the prison is run (smuggling drugs into jail, the different ethnic groups, the guards under Luciani’s thumb,…) and how Malik gradually finds his place. This is all presented in a very realistic way which leads the viewer to believe that these things can actually take place in a prison – any prison for that matter. The story does not feel forced at all and no judgement is passed on anyone. Malik and his friends do terrible things, but Audiard makes no effort to justify these actions. That is left up to the viewer to decide.
This realistic look and feel has some consequences, the most important one being the fact that Audiard indirectly criticizes the French prison system. Malik learns how to read and write while being held captive, develops his language skills and learns his trade (being a criminal mastermind), but there is no rehabilitation whatsoever. This is primarily because Malik initially cannot make his own choices due to the Corsicans approaching him very quickly. If he does not kill his fellow inmate, he will himself be killed. His self-preservation instinct ended up taking over, but at what cost?
Malik then discovers that he is actually quite good at being a criminal due to his eagerness to learn and open-mindedness. He does not mind dealing with various ethnic groups, as opposed to the Corsicans who consider the Arabs to be inferior human beings. So why would he not develop his skill set in order to function even better in this prison system? Eventually, Malik’s identity is nearly entirely shaped by prison life. He has become conditioned by prison. A beautiful example of this, is when Malik got checked out by a guard when boarding his plane. He instinctively sticks out his tongue, just like he has to do whenever he enters prison again when returning from his vacation day. This subtle touch showed how much prison had become a part of Malik. “You can take the man out of jail, but you cannot take jail out of the man” seems a fitting expression here.
There is so still so much more left to say - how Malik’s humanity is eroded by prison, how Reyeb acts as Malik’s conscience and whether Malik has in fact benefitted from prison life – but I will end this review by saying that this is a brilliant movie that leaves you wondering and philosophizing for days after having viewed it. Watch it if you have the chance.
