Criticature: "Un Prophete" - 4/25/10

I KEEL YOU!

What makes a good prison movie? The sheer volume of convict chronicles might suggest that the devil is in the details. But then what details make or break a mold we’ve seen and joked about so many times? Machine shops? Time spent in ‘the yard’? Solitary confinement? Protection dues? Conjugal visits? Shivs? Corrupt guards? No, wait. I got it…shower scenes, right?

As clichéd as those elements might sound, “Un Prophte” contains them all and still manages to come out on top somehow. In fact, about the only thing director Jacques Audiard’s crime drama seems to lack is escape tunnels.

It’s said that Audiard’s overriding concept (which coheres slowly like pooled blood on cell grout) was to give a voice and a face to those groups who have no voice and no face in films. While that progressivism might seem lofty, even holier-than-thou, there’s a gritty sincerity to that claim as we follow Malik El Djebena (Rahim), a sixteen-year-old petty criminal who is quickly inducted into the way of the prison world, straddling the line between the Corsican Mafiosos who ‘protect’ him and the French Arabs with whom he shares the common burden of ‘invisibility’.

I’ll admit it gets a bit…hypnotic at some points, but confusion or art for the sake of art doesn’t force the hand. With a little bit of class, a little bit of brutality and a whole shitload of great acting (most notably by Arestrup who plays the impetuous and abusive ‘father’ figure Luciani), “Un Prophete” indeed lives up to the standard to which it aspires, not merely as a good prison movie but as a good movie, period.

It’s kind of like “American Me”….except good. It’s best if: A.) You’ve always wondered what a romance language sounds like behind bars. B.) Coming-of-age stories. C.) Small handfuls of great action and buckets of good dialogue.

 ****

Directed by: Jacques Audiard

Screenplay: Thomas Bidegain and Jacques Audiard
Original Screenplay: Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit

Cast:
Tahar Rahim...........................................Malik El Djebena
Niels Arestrup........................................César Luciani
Adel Bencherif........................................Ryad
Hichem Yacoubi.....................................Reyeb
Reda Kateb............................................Jordi
Jean-Philippe Ricci.................................Vettori
Leïla Bekhti............................................Djamila
Pierre Leccia..........................................Sampierro
Foued Nassah.......................................Antaro
Jean-Emmanuel Pagni............................Santi