I had heard about Un Prophete through watching the BBC news one morning. They were talking about what films had impressed at Cannes in 2009. It looked like the kind of film that I like. Gritty, realistic and emotional. It had been receiving excellent reviews across the world and had been compared to another favourite of mine La Haine. I finally got round to watching it last week and it lives up to the reviews it has been getting. It’s stunning.

It tells the story of Malik a 19 year North African who is sent to prison for six years for beating a policeman. He arrives at an unknown prison with no friends and no family on the outside to help him. Maliks lonely existence in the prison is shattered when Corsican mafia kingpin Cesar Luciani, who is played brilliantly and terrifyingly by Niels Arestrup, who controls the prison tells Malik to kill an Arab prisoner Reyeb or be killed himself. Malik is in an impossible situation.

This is when the film really cranks up a notch and we get the horrifying scenes where Malik practices concealing a razor blade in his mouth and of course the actual murder which is almost too realistic too watch. I was gripping the sofa with sheer dread.

This makes him a lieutenant in the prisons Corsican gang, initially entrusted only with menial duties and disparaged as an Arab outsider.

Haunted by visions of a ghostly Reyeb, and determined to get on, the illiterate Malik not only learns to read, but teaches himself Corsican, surreptitiously learning the ins and outs of Luciani’s business. Another inmate, Ryad (Adel Bencherif), becomes Malik’s friend, later his ally on the outside.
When Luciani arranges periods of leave for Malik, entrusting him with various criminal missions, Malik takes the opportunity to do some business of his own, setting up a drugs trade with Ryad’s aid.

Life gets increasingly dangerous for Malik, both inside and outside prison walls, but he seems partly through Reyeb’s benign, unearthly influence – to lead a charmed life. Powers of prophecy are attributed to him after surviving a bizarre car crash an incident presaged in an enigmatic fantasy sequence.

As the film progresses we start to see Malik grow from a boy into a man and he also has the skill of playing both the Arab and Corsican sides. In one of the penultimate scenes which is shot beautifully on the Parisian streets we see him finally put the final piece of the jigsaw in place to become his own man. When released he has no ties with the prison and his charmed life inside the prison walls is extended out.

What stands out throughout this masterpiece is Jacques Audiard dream like direction that moves along effortlessly so that you don’t even notice the two and a half hour running time. The mix of realism and dream like sequences works a charm and brings the film away from the usual prison drama.

Some have said this is as good as the Godfather and I would agree. Its epic in its scale, the acting is some of the best I have ever seen and the direction is also on another planet from your usual Hollywood dirge.

Just go see this film!

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