A Prophet (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #32 extract: A Prophet (2009)

A Prophet is a truly tremendous gangster film that follows the rise of a French-Arab man of Algerian descent in a Parisian prison system. Clearly intended to be reflective of French cultural and historical tensions - much like De Palma's Scarface was for America - with allusions to ethnic conflict and an immigrant's struggle, A Prophet is packed with constant questions of place and loyalty. It is the perfect management of this subtextual conflict that gives so much power to the narrative and provides such a complex, yet compelling, anti-hero. The only short-comings of this narrative are its loose references to religion. In places they make sense, but this motif doesn't build to anything particularly substantial - at least, it didn't strike me as such on this first watch. 

Nonetheless, A Prophet is an incredible film that is technically faultless and imbued with subtle, unapologetic beauty.