Un prophète (2009)

Director:

Jacques Audiard

Writers:

Thomas Bidegain (screenplay) and
Jacques Audiard (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

26 August 2009 (Belgium)

Genre:

Drama | Crime

Plot:

A young Arab man is sent to a French prison where he becomes a mafia kingpin. |

Plot Keywords:

Mafia | Arab | Prison | Brutality | Ghost

Awards:

2 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Tahar Rahim	...	Malik El Djebena
Niels Arestrup	...	César Luciani
Adel Bencherif	...	Ryad
Hichem Yacoubi	...	Reyeb
Reda Kateb	...	Jordi
Jean-Philippe Ricci	...	Vettori
Gilles Cohen	...	Prof
Antoine Basler	...	Pilicci
Leïla Bekhti	...	Djamila
Pierre Leccia	...	Sampierro
Foued Nassah	...	Antaro
Jean-Emmanuel Pagni	...	Santi
Frédéric Graziani	...	Chef de détention
Slimane Dazi	...	Lattrache
Rabah Loucif	...	L'avocat de Malik

Also Known As:

A Prophet (International: English title) (festival title) (UK) (USA)
Un profeta (Italy)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, sexual content, nudity, language and drug material.

Runtime:

155 min | France:150 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French | Arabic | Corsican

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #45559) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Ireland:16 | UK:18 | Argentina:16

Company:

Why Not Productions

Trivia:

France's official submission to 82nd Academy Award's Foreign Language in 2010.

A critic's hype

This film has been massively over-rated. Of course it has good performances, and mis-en-scene - it should do with the talent on hand. But at the end of the day this a nasty film about very nasty people which plays on every prison movie cliché. Disguising its true rationale - revenge, violence and the criminal world are sure fire recipes for commercial success - it is misogynist, homophobic, and yes, yes, yes, sympathetic to racism and the branding of political and religious stereotypes. We are invited to sympathise with a man who murders within minutes of his appearance. We are invited to enjoy his antagonist's subtle brutality (the end sequence is used to justify this by inviting sympathy for him too in his fresh isolation at the expense of some very unpleasant fundamentalist Muslims), and we are asked to enjoy the interplay of Roman Catholic pseudo religiosity, and Islam in equal measures. The film is offencive to both religions and its duplicitous political prejudices re-enforce the reasons to severely mistrust its manipulative dramatic tensions. The up market critics have as usual behaved like sheep and praised this film out of all proportion - sadly few of them have taken the trouble to really think about it. To complement its status at Cannes in 2009,the BFI/London Film festival jury have been conned by the pre, during and post Cannes hype by giving it a Best Film Award (in the same year as The White Ribbon, Precious and a host of other great movies shown at the LFF) - embarrassing and typical of the British film hierarchy: they have succumbed to its technical wizardry and its visceral impact. The same attitudes which have given The Bourne movies their dubious critical status. The film has some great performances but like all great propaganda, and films with dubious messages, they are serving the premise and have been used cleverly to re-enforce it. I felt dirty and disgusted with myself after seeing this horrible film. My guess is that director will scoff, the critics huff and puff, and those who like violent criminals to be the vehicle for their weak philosophising will dismiss my comments as 'agenda led' or 'misguided' or 'blind' to the films qualities. I would refer them to far greater examples of the genre (criminals and prisons) which deal with human issues with honesty and with a highly thought through political and sociological perspective (and I use only a few of the more recent examples - I leave alone the great prison movies, and movies which deal with incarcerated criminals which came from the 1930's and 1940's. This is a list in no order: The Shawshank Redemption; The Birdman of Alcatraz; Brubaker; Scum; Scrubbers; L'Argent; Daybreak (a recent Iranian film); Hunger; Dead Man Walking; and then almost all of Melville's films; Papillon; Cool Hand Luke.... Un Prophete is a dishonest film which is disguised as such because it is so obviously well made. That puts it into the category of surely one of the worst (and equally dishonest) prison movies of all time - Midnight Express and that had similar critical praise and attention.