Several times the two men almost abandon

Jacques Audiard readily argues that the prison film, as the western, is a genre film. It should be noted immediately: it is the awesome kind. These 2 hours and 30 minutes from the State film gross are balanced as a series of uppercuts from which it is breathless and neurons in boiling. A concentrate of sensations as it is rarely given to see on the screen. And that would have largely won, if the competition was also harsh, a palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival. But that import the Laurel, "A prophet", which received the grand prize of the jury, even won the Palm of admiration.

Jacques Audiard, fifty-seven years, impeccable filmography: "Watch the men fall", "A very discreet hero", "on my lips", "beating my heart stopped". In fifteen years, barely five films. When some of his fellow cycled through the claps, goes it critical and popular success. For "A prophet", written from an original screenplay Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit, Jacques Audiard and his usual co-screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, worked not less than five years, returning constantly to the ground, prey to doubt as a painter before his canvas which accumulates remorse and pentimenti. Several times, the two men almost abandon. On the filming of the film, nothing was won: "one evening, the wizard and the script came to see me, while I was going to return home and they told me: should you stop to doubt!", remembers the Director. "Implication: you are right in the wall." I think that if I I was not involved in each stage of writing and that if I shooting more often, I would feel much more free.

Barbarian codes

This requirement in writing invades the screen. And the public is not forget this snorkeling in the prison world, with its barbaric codes and its rites of passage. Sentenced to six years in prison for a foul which it ignores, Malik (Tahar Rahim, revelation), nineteen years, is absolutely not prepared for what awaits him. This young man to fragile, almost feminine physique, arrives there, up from nowhere, without family or history. Misconduct of foster homes, he knows neither read nor write. A fragility which makes easy prey to the rackets, humiliation. His luck, if we dare say, will be to be approached by the head of the gang of Corsicans that rule its legislation on the prison, César Luciani (Niels Arestrup, beautifully used, once more, by Audiard). The Corsican sponsor, on subjects such as the "King without entertainment" of Giono, proposes a market to the new arrival: in exchange for the murder of an inmate who is about to testify against the Corsicans before the judge and single Malik may approach, the latter will be placed under the protection of Luciani. A proposal made with so much insistence that Malik is bound to accept, which will result in one of the most violent and the most memorable film scenes. Malik will not forget this barbaric murder victim will revert the haunt hallucinées visits which will confer on the film its prophetic dimension.

Once under the protection of the Corsicans, Malik will use all rules available to his new friends from a prison administration that is fully acquired. It will circulate everywhere in prison, "cantiner", participate in thousand traffic allowing prisoners to improve their personal lives. But, as soon as he claims to emancipate themselves somewhat from the tutelage of his patron, the latter the reminds the order of the most brutal way. Finally, Malik so well seems to accept the rule of the game that eventually capture the confidence of Luciani, which will take advantage of the conditional permissions of his protégé to give several missions of confidence.

The frightened teenager who strode years earlier morphs then our eyes in a formidable small kingpin situations and reports of acute intelligence. Thus, when the power of the Corsicans to decline while the ranks of the Arabs to build, Malik is ready to play its own partition. And to change sides. By the sole force of his will of survival with its ability to adapt and simulation, Malik, the "thug who hates the thugs", according to the word of Audiard has, before the other, the perception of a world that switches and clear vision of the coming. A Prophet in some way.