A Prophet is what can be called a “prison movie”. In his genre, it’s one of the best I’ve ever watched. It was released in 2009 and has been nominated for Best Foreign Movie both for Oscars and Golden Globes. Unfortunately, it competed with The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos) which won the Oscar. The Globe has been received by a German movie, The White Ribbon. It won a BAFTA instead, for the best foreign movie category, many Césars (Best Film, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, etc.) and Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes, the second great award of the competition.
Niels Arestrup and Tahar Rahim in A Prophet
A Prophet – Plot
The movie, follows the life of Malik El Djebena, a young Frenchman of Algerian descent, who enters prison as a naïve outsider and is shaped into an over accomplished criminal. He wasn’t born evil; he was just a shy and passive loser. He seems an unlikely protagonist for a prison movie. He’s skinny, he’s insecure, and he’s trying to raise a mustache. He’s behind bars for unclear reasons; he claims he’s innocent, although it doesn’t matter. Prison efficiently strips him of privacy and self-respect and serves him over to the Corsican gang that controls everything behind bars through violence and bribes. Prison made him all that he can be. He was illiterate, but he learned to read and write with a friend’s help. He has also learned Corsican, which came very handy considering his place in the gang.
Tahar Rahim – Un prophète (2009)
Cast
Tahar Rahim is Malik El Djebena, the main character. Niels Arestrup is César Luciani, the Corsican gang’s leader in the prison, and an important member of the Corsican mafia. Adel Bencherif is Ryad, the guy who helped Malik to learn to read and writing. He will become an associate outside the prison walls. Reda Kateb is Jordi, a Gypsy drug dealer Malik met in prison. He will become the second associate. Hichem Yacoubi is Reyeb, someone who appears during the movie. Jean-Philippe Ricci is Vettori, Luciano’s right hand. Pierre Leccia is Sampierro, Luciano’s lawyer. Jean-Emmanuel Pagni is Santi, one of Luciano’s associates. Leïla Bekhti is Djamila, Reyeb’s wife. Rabah Loucif is Malik’s lawyer. Slimane Dazi is Lattrache, a Muslim mafia leader, somehow related to Reyeb. For reasons of unspooling the movie’s plot, I considered it better to not show more about these characters.
Tahar Rahim in A Prophet (2009)
[source for all pics: imdb.com]
A Prophet is directed by Jacques Audiard from a screenplay he co-wrote with Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri, and Nicolas Peufaillit. As I already said, it won many awards.
Trailer
This is a movie to watch, it’s mesmerizing. It has a very favorable critical response, as usual, better from critics than from the ordinary population, whose opinion has to be shaped most of the time.
Rahim is married in real life with Leïla Bekhti whom he met while filming A Prophet.
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