From the beginning, Jacques Audiard’s sixth feature film refuses to stray from whole-heartedly telling the story of a young man from the wrong side of the virtues of literacy, family, religion and self-control. Un Prophète is a violent depiction of a kid caught in the frays of the French underworld, who puts his back against prison walls and refuses to give in his fight until he is the last man standing. Nineteen-year-old Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is a young Franco-Arab incarcerated for assaulting police and, as the smallest fish in one nasty pond, tries hard to avoid connections and simply stay alive. Once dragged into a deadly game of kill our mafia informant or we will kill you, by an ageing yet dominating Corsican “godfather” figure and his mob, Malik touches the first rung of the hardened criminal career ladder, and hastily climbs to the top.

Like the Italian film Gomorrah and its taking of the Grand Prix Prize at Cannes in 2008, the victory of Un Prophète in 2009 shows once again how the cinema world are still willing to decorate raw filmmaking and violent, gritty storytelling with the second most prestigious prize of the French festival. While Jacques Audiard is no stranger to accepting the most coveted awards offered by Cannes, having once won a Best Screenplay recognition for his work on Un Heros Tres Discret in 1996, Un Prophète almost feels lacking in the screenplay department, with many long sequences uttering only so much as silence as Malik slowly but steadily climbs to the top of the French jail-based underworld. Yet it is at intense times in the film, when Malik seemes cornered and about to meet a sticky end – as a lone wolf-cub in a deadly man’s jail, as the marked man ordered to carry out the Corsican’s dirty work, whilst establishing himself in the drugs industry, and also while juggling loyalties to the Corsicans, the Muslims, his closest friends and ultimately, himself – that Audiard’s subtle brilliance shines through and demands the audience to recognize each volatile point he has withheld until it can be no more.

As the film’s title implies, Malik is presented as some sort of criminal Prophet, making a miracle of his very existence through his ability to stay alive. While in lock-up, Malik gets an education, learns Corsican and then learns to manipulate the two crowds he works with – the Corsicans he has served for five years and the Muslim connections that have always been his birthright. At the same time, however, Malik is smart enough to build his own empire on the outside, while maintaining loyalties to both sides, and effectively comes to control drug trafficking and any unwanted bad guys on the streets of France. Audiard’s suggestion that it is the most religious of men who are the most corrupt – insisted through Christian symbolism hanging from the necks of gangsters, the fact that the Muslim gang is controlled by a local Imam, and Malik’s own abstinence from taking a definitive side and thus rendering himself a renegade in this holy war – all serve only to heighten the tension of the story. Gangster films of past usually always feature two or more sides at war, divided by ethnic differences but united by psychopathic tendencies and greed. When religion adds yet another layer of complexity to the force behind criminal activity, a prophecy of deep hatred and violence becomes a chilling foreshadow for the future.

Definitely not a product of Hollywood, Un Prophète is a sharp look at life on the inside until Malik learns through his gains and losses that there are often more things to live for than violence and crime. That said, despite an undefinitive ending that affords Malik the freedom to walk from prison and into the arms of some resemblance of family, there is no point that comes to end his criminal involvement. Much like the ending of last episode of the Sopranos,  the audience here is left without knowing whether the carloads of dodgy characters who have also come to wait for Malik on his release day are there to follow and kill, or simply there to follow their new leader – their prophet.

Verdict:

Not for the faint-hearted, as many graphic scenes show murder at its most colourful. However, this is a deep look into the eyes of many bad guys and a great example of the direction that French cinema is heading in for the future.