Un Prophète [Grand Prize winner at Cannes]

[modage]

Synopsis: "Un Prophete" ("A Prophet") is a prison drama about a young, illiterate Arab man sent to a French prison where he becomes a mafia kingpin. 

Buzz: Jacques Audiard's latest film was the most talked-about picture at Cannes last year, won the runner up Grand Prize and "calls to mind old-fashioned French thrillers by Jean-Pierre Melville. The film shows Audiard to be the biggest beast in new French cinema."

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/aprophetunprophete/

[modage]

from my blog:

Earlier this week Film Society of Lincoln Center screened last year's Cannes sensation Un Prophète. The film is about Malik, a 19 year old illiterate Arab who is sent to prison for 6 years for an unspecified crime.  Inside he is asked by the head of a Corsican gang to kill someone for him or he will be murdered.  He tries to find a way out but realizes that the gang seems to have control over everything, including the guards.  Eventually he goes through with it, in one of the films moments of startling violence.  Throughout the film the man he's murdered shows up in his cell to keep him company, cigarette smoke coming from the gash in his neck, in scenes that reminded me of Griffin Dune in An American Werewolf In London.

The film, set 90% in prison with brief day leaves scheduled throughout, shows Malik adapting to prison life and managing to stay alive by outsmarting the oppressive forces around him.  For what could have been grueling (2 1/2 hours in prison!) or naggingly uplifting (illiterate learns to read!), this film rides a fine line for being a smart character drama that leaves room for moments of humor.  The film comes out next week distributed by Sony Pictures Classics who does a great job at releasing great movies that nobody goes to see!  Watch the trailer, see for yourself.

[samsong]

despite how discouragingly neglected my jacques audiard thread was/is, i love this film enough to get behind it at the risk of being ignored a second time:  

go see this.

a prophet is a movie's movie, in keeping with the tradition of Great French Prison Films -- as tense as le trou and (almost) as transcendental as a man escaped -- with a fascinating, idiosyncratic ethno-spiritual twist that is uncannily topical but logical-in-order-to-serve-the-story first.   it's an immersive, messy, and strange film with one of the most impressive debut performances that i've ever seen.  hopefully this will turn some attention back to audriard's other films.  read my lips and the beat that my heart skipped are both very good.

[Captain of Industry]

Sight & Sound named it the top film of 2009.  Then they have individual critic's lists, and I can't remember who it was but someone said that the emergence of this film is for Audiard what There Will Be Blood was for Paul Thomas Anderson, as in it's the film that indisputably displays the talent and range of the filmmaker.

It's that good and better.  modage sort of makes it sound like a gangster literacy film (is that synopsis just a paraphrase of the press materials?), but it really has a wealth of dimensions.  Sure he learns to read in the film, it takes up about five minutes, but then he learns economics, and the current of didacticism propels him to learn on his own.  He teaches himself Corsu.  The narrative roughly mirrors the journey of the prophet Mohammed.

You really do have to go back to Rivette or Dassin to find a filmmaker expressing this level of poetry and badassery, depth and danger.

It goes great with Lion's Den.

[Pas]

Let's face it, if this thread has 3 posts, and it took this long for it to be created, it's obvious the Xixax community has lost all interest in international cinema. I also learned about it from Sight And Sound (because I usually take all my film advice from Xixax) and I was blown away.

I won't write so much about it because I'd rather think about the film in french (on my "blog") but I urge you to see it.

[©brad]

Let's face it, if this thread has 3 posts, and it took this long for it to be created, it's obvious the Xixax community has lost all interest in international cinema.

Um, no. The film is only being released in the US this week. How much pre-release fanboy rambling on any film outside of a PTA joint do you expect here? I know I'm seeing this bastard this week and I couldn't be more excited, especially after reading samsong/Captain's reviews. Xixax has always had a strong collective interest in international cinema. If the international film threads aren't abuzz with activity it's mainly because most of us, especially those outside film-centric cities like LA/NYC, have to wait until DVD. We might be late to the party, but we generally always see what we need to see.

[Pubrick]

word, cbrad.

i'd also like to say that the reason i never saw this dude's last film was cos i just couldn't stand the superfluous "that" in the title. The Beat My Heart Skipped -- MUCH better isn't it?

A Prophet was released here only in the last week as well. it's amazing to have it shown cos the only other foreign film oscar nominee i'm interested in seeing (along, begrudgingly, with The White Ribbon) is The Milk of Sorrow, aka La Teta Asustada, aka The Scared Tit which has no chance of being released here anytime soon, and my only hope of seeing it is the complete rip that's available on youtube sans subtitles.

i like what the Capt said about this film's loose reference to Mohammed. i hadn't heard that but it explains the title very well and makes me think it will be very clever.

[modage]

modage sort of makes it sound like a gangster literacy film (is that synopsis just a paraphrase of the press materials?), but it really has a wealth of dimensions.

The synopsis I grabbed from ThePlaylist who prob grabbed it from the press materials.

[Pas]

Fair enough. This one is brand new.

I still think that the board has become a bit newest-hollywood-blockbuster. Just take a look at the Other Movies forum, there is like 5 posts a month and that is counting posts on drivel films like Hancock, Next, etc.

I am not the guy who will write the most interesting long-winded analysis of old or foreign or rare films, I am not even english and have no knowledge of cinema whatsoever. I can barely tell what's composition and all that stuff. But I do enjoy reading and discovering stuff. The Last Stage thread was great (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=11002.0) and got only 2 replies. Come and See is one of the must disturbing and interesting I've seen in my life and the thread got almost 0 interest. Just saying.

i'd also like to say that the reason i never saw this dude's last film was cos i just couldn't stand the superfluous "that" in the title. The Beat My Heart Skipped -- MUCH better isn't it?

Even the french title was super annoying... ''De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté''... is it fucking Yoda speaking?

[Stefen]

It's good. I don't think I could ever watch it again. It's pretty brutal. The actor that played Tahar kind of looks like Telly from Kids lol. It is filled with tons of badassery. Can someone break down how it parallels that of Mohammad? I find that very interesting and it's something I didn't pick up on while watching it.

SPOILERS.
When Tahar cuts Reyebs throat, I had to close my eyes. That doesn't happen often.

[Gold Trumpet]

Pas is right. The main time we actually write about obscure movies is when we're compiling lists. A couple times a conversation will break out on something to do with what a film is about, but it doesn't happen often and it always involves the same regulars. More conversations will break out on standard Hollywood films and often the recipe of the chatter is about how we're better than the said movie.

That being said, I'm really excited to see this movie and it makes me wish Mark Cuban's idea of releasing a film on different formats at the same time came true. I stand no chance to see this movie for a long time. It's interesting because Disney wants their films to have shorter times in theaters and be rushed to DVD, but foreign films like this are taking even longer to make it to wide DVD distribution. Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg over a year and the Dardenne's The Son almost took two years. Ridiculous, I say.

[Stefen]

After watching this two times, I think I can safely say that it's the best movie of 2009. I would have voted for it if I had seen it before voting rolled around. The whole power arch of Malik is something special. The way he's unsure, conflicted and ultimately completely at ease of falling into his powerful position is something special. Audiard lets us have it gradually which is so much more effective than just painting Malik as a badass from act one.

Please see this. It really is something special.

[Alexandro]

this film didn't do much for me. i don't know why. i appreciated it, loved a lot of things in it, but i became impatient about and hour and half into it. I saw it the day before yesterday and a few minutes ago I was browsing through the "now showing" thread to see what I should check out next and saw this title and realized i had all but forgotten about it. I'll probably see it again at some point, though.