One of the consequences of award season is that spotlighted directors are given only a brief window of opportunity for audiences of non-cinephiles. This is beneficial to a filmmaker like Bong Joon-ho, whose Best Picture-winning Parasite was a crossover hit that enticed Americans with the possibilities of South Korean cinema. Conversely, a film that earned more vitriolic responses will be associated with its filmmaker, even if their body of work has painted a much different portrait of their career.
Jacques Audiard was a fairly respected French auteur, whose interest in never returning to the same genre had given him an aura of unpredictability. Despite having earned the Palme d’Or in 2015 for his social drama Dheepan, Audiard wouldn’t become a household name stateside until his crime musical Emilia Pérez was picked up by Netflix, and became a prominent award season contender. Emilia Pérez prompted a level of controversy in regards to its broad generalizations about Mexican culture, offensive portrayal of transgender characters, disastrous musical numbers, and hateful comments made by its lead actress, Karla Sofía Gascón. Dejected cinephiles lambasted Audiard as an artistic charlatan, whose film ate up attention that should’ve been paid to more worthy contenders; general audiences were left to assume that he was a pretentious, out-of-touch international filmmaker.
Emilia Pérez is the type of bloated misfire that could only have been made by a filmmaker of talent; it’d be impossible to make such an outrageous, ambitious spectacle without at least some evidence of a consistent track record. Audiard may have started his career as the screenwriter behind a multitude of French genre thrillers, but his mastery behind the camera wasn’t evident until the release of 2009’s A Prophet.
A Prophet featured a breakout performance by Tahar Rahim as Malik El-Djebena, a young criminal imprisoned alongside veteran gangsters within a maximum-security facility. Despite arrests for violent brawls with law enforcement officials, Malik never fully developed as a young adult, as his literary and cultural skills were limited upon his initial incarceration. A Prophet is an examination of one man’s self-actualization behind bars, as Malik is forced to adopt a ruthless mindset in order to survive. The six years that A Prophet detailed offer insights about classist trajectory, ethnic tension, and radicalization techniques relevant to modern France, but they’re filtered through the perspective of one man’s transition from pawn to powerbroker.
If the primary criticism of Emilia Pérez was that Audiard showed no interest in the cultures that he’d chosen to spotlight, then A Prophet is proof that this was an active choice. Malik’s a character who’s forced to develop a consciousness because his identity has been politicized; to engage in any of his cultural practices would be considered dangerous within prison, as he’s forced to choose a side within the longstanding feud between the Corsicans and the Maghrebis. Malik’s decision to align himself with the Corsicans is one of both desperation and bravery; his North African heritage has resulted in a dynamic in which he’ll never be considered an equal to those he has agreed to kill for.
Malik’s youthfulness is a key component to why his arc is so interesting; he hasn’t yet been forced to develop an ideological code. While there’s plenty of justification for a resistance towards the French police, Malik’s initial disobedience was for the benefit of his family, and wasn’t related to an overarching philosophy. Any concerns that A Prophet would be an idealized portrayal of innocence lost are erased within the first act, in which Malik’s forced to kill a fellow inmate to protect a code of silence. It’s a decision related to the film’s focus on the ethics of survivalism; only the strong survive, as pity for those unequipped to defend themselves has no value.
A Prophet is remarkably detail-oriented in its showcase of Malik’s rise to power. Although his ethnicity has led many to assume he’s submissive, Malik’s dominance within the prison’s drug trade resulted in access to nearly every level of infrastructure, including those assigned to keep him at bay. With his knowledge of the outside world limited to only sparse strategic activities explained to him by the senior members of the Corsican mafia, his mind’s taught to view life as a game, in which people can be bought, buried, and betrayed in order to win. The double-edged sword that Audiard articulated is that it’s hard not to invest in the idea that Malik would be better off if he was no longer in prison; the most painful realization in A Prophet is that freedom doesn’t automatically result in a moral rebound.
The title is a reference to an association with the divine used to describe Malik after his concerns about a looming threat are proven correct. While the hyper awareness that Malik developed was essential when he was incarcerated, the level of adeptness he’s shown would seem mystical to those unfamiliar with his experiences. Nonetheless, a prophet is also a spokesperson for an ideology, and Malik’s caginess about his destiny result in a fascinating crisis of confidence. Initially he was able to assume power because he was willing to make his entire personality and beliefs fungible; upon the advancement to a position of authority, Malik’s left to question his life’s work of violence.
Audiard’s a filmmaker interested in the relationship between profession and self-image, a theme that was touched upon in his acerbic western The Sisters Brothers, his romantic odyssey Rust and Bone, and the aforementioned award-winner Dheepan. Yet, A Prophet is still an unorthodox masterpiece that can’t be compared to his other work. A Prophet is an underdog story of a vindictive kingpin, and to give into the film’s undeniable entertainment value is to be somewhat complicit.