(2009; Un prophète, French, Arabic, Corsican) Sent to the joint with the big guys, after spending most of his life in juvenile detention, Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), an illiterate, irreligious 19-year-old Franco-Arab, without family or friends, begins a six-year sentence in the Brécourt prison for attacking cops (though he denies the charge). Once inside he's vulnerable; two inmates in the yard violently relieve him of his sneakers.

Elsewhere in the prison, César Luciani (Niels Arestrup), a white-haired, venerated Corsican mafioso, has received instructions from his boss outside to knock off an Arab rival and new arrival, Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), before he can testify in an upcoming trial. Needing someone who can penetrate into the Arab cell-block, Luciani makes his acquaintance with Malik by saying: "You think you can last here without protection?" He then makes an offer the young man can't refuse: "If you don't kill him, I'll kill you."

Director Jacques Audiard, who co-wrote the script with Thomas Bidegain from an original screenplay by Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit, intended his dramatic film to be an exposé of the appallingly corrupt system of incarceration in France. When Malik attempts to report his encounter with the Corsicans to the director and warden, he's met instead by Luciani's thugs: "We run this place. Do as we say." Some of the hacks (guards) report to Luciani.

Rewarded for performing the deed (in a graphic scene where Reyeb's throat's slit with a razor secreted inside Malik's cheek) without anyone else's knowing who committed the murder, Malik becomes a servile member of the Corsican gang, though they're hostile toward the "dirty Arab," and begins learning to read and write in the prison school. He's also haunted by the phantom of Reyeb, who eventually becomes a silent comrade.

In the classes Malik develops a friendship with another Arab, Ryad Mnaili (Adel Bencherif); on his own he studies Corsican. Following enactment of a new French law that removes most of the Corsicans from Brécourt for political reasons to another prison, Luciani becomes more dependent upon Malik as his "eyes and ears."

First he arranges for Malik's being moved to a cell with better accommodations beside his own along with greater freedom throughout the prison as a porter; then he gets Malik leave days to the outside where the Arab becomes a courier for the Corsican on a 12-hour stint away from the bars of confinement. Claiming he has secured an auto-mechanic job for his rehabilitation through Ryad, who had been released and returned to his wife Djamila, Malik has become the godfather to his friend's son.

During this advancement of his status, Malik also enters a partnership with a drug dealer, Jordi (Reda Kateb), to distribute hashish to prisoners, using Ryad as his outside contact in what becomes a growing network of drug deals. Back inside the prison walls, Malik furthers his partnerships, connections, and alliances by manipulating both César and the Arabs (through an acquaintanceship with Hassan, who will become a go-between with an imam) by claiming he's nothing more than a slave to the Corsican while using his influence with Luciani to spare the Arabs further harassment from the hacks.

To Ryad after the Egyptian Latif temporarily shuts down their drug operation, Malik cautions his friend's desire for revenge: "We'll settle our scores when the time's right." Prior to another day of leave, Malik has a vision of deer crossing a road during a dream, which serves him serendipitously while riding along with Lattrache in Marseille on a mission of negotiation for César: "What are you - a prophet?" Before his release from Brécourt prison, Malik usurps Luciani's throne.

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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