The film begins with a voyeuristic shot: the whole frame is pitch black, and only a small space in front of the audience is illuminated with a bleak white light, illuminating a pair of hands that are clasped and locked. Here the audience is defined as a voyeur, and what we are about to witness is an Arab youth who had nothing left to experience the most important lesson of his life in prison. In the past 6 years, what he has acquired is not only power, but also the necessary skills and emotional experience to survive in society in the future.
With the subjective shots taken by the shaking hand-held camera, the so-called free life in his dreams is all captured in prison. Such acts of disregarding personal dignity as naked body searches are completely wiped out. The protagonist, Gibbena, is caught in a maelstrom of intricate gang confrontation. The Corsican gangs, the Muslim gangs, and the Italian mafia all check and balance each other, forming a metaphor for modern French society. As an Arab, Gibbena has gained a foothold in the Corsican gang by killing people, but because of his race, he can only stay at the bottom of the gang. But in reality Gibbena had a prerequisite for his notoriety—he had big ambitions. He studied Corsican desperately, taking every opportunity to improve. And taking advantage of the opportunity to go out to work in prison after being favored, he gradually established his own cannabis kingdom.
As far as Gibbena is concerned, his most important turning point was when he saw the mutually restrictive relationship between gangs, he repeatedly used various forces to serve himself, and successfully reversed the original pattern. In order to emphasize Gibena's realization this time, the film deliberately treats the process in a religious manner. The director arranged a dream (it's an illusion, subconscious, etc.), and used the same voyeuristic vision as the beginning of the film to suggest that he spied on the secret, which is also the meaning of the title "prophet". At the end of the film, when Gibbena was trotting calmly and calmly in the narrow cell, everything that happened outside the cell was carried out smoothly according to his plan. Here Gibbena is a veritable prophet.
Such a main line design can easily be understood as a pure history of the struggles of small people, and that shameful history of making a fortune, but in addition to narrating Gibbena's fortune, the accumulation and rendering of emotions is also the color of this legend. An indispensable element in a strong film. Among them, the most prominent is the friendship line between Gibbena and Riyadh, the inmate who is suffering from cancer. The director has been running it casually. When the clues are gathered, suddenly there is a moving force. When Riyadh later asked Gibbena to take good care of his family, Gibbena's identity was positioned as the pillar of a family. Especially when he was holding the child of his best friend, he showed sincere love on his face, revealing the gentle side of the character. The last shot of the film is also a meaningful hint, with Gibbena in the foreground with his mother holding the child, and behind him his responsive men. The concept of family has been repeatedly mentioned and emphasized in the gangster film, but the power of this "other people's family" is looming.
"The Prophet" spans a lot of time, has experienced a lot of events, and has a very large number of characters. Once it is in the hands of Americans, it is estimated that a season of "Prison Break" will be produced. I remember when the teacher told us about Tang poetry and writing essays, he emphasized the importance of brevity. It is said that the great writers will not hesitate to give up their love, and eliminate all the words and sentences that have no effect on the overall situation (now, if you want to talk about the manuscript fee, I am afraid it will not work). Similarly, Jacques Audiard is also a master at subtraction, all the branches that hinder the rhythm are cut off, and the scenes that remain are also simplified as much as possible. What is rare is that the indispensable details and psychological descriptions in the film are very rich, and the expressions of the shots are also extremely precise and clear, and the skills are rich. For example, the director's psychological portrayal of Gibbena has an intuitive visual expression: Gibbena, who usually wears dark clothes, changed into white clothes in the scene where he was at a friend's house, especially when he was holding a child. At that time, the white clothes are more eye-catching, conveying a purity in Gibbena's heart. Similarly, when Riyadh was about to die of illness, he also put on a white coat, and there were also scenes suggesting the Holy Light.
What's more, when the new characters appear, there is a characteristic - they come in a hurry, and the film only gives an extra-large subtitle of the person's name. Like a certain drug dealer who was eloquent as soon as he appeared on the scene, and the three sentences were not separated from marijuana, everyone knew it in their hearts. However, some small characters are so thin that they are easily forgotten, so it is better not to.
It is worth mentioning that "The Prophet" has pushed to the extreme in both realistic and romantic styles. In fact, needless to say about the realistic style, most of the past gangster films and even wider range of crime films used bloody realistic descriptions to shock the audience's attention. In particular, audiences who are sensitive to plasma were immediately "captured" by the director. Like the famous montage at the end of "The Godfather", in which the scene of struggling to kick the window glass, the cruel contradiction between survival and killing is vividly conveyed. "The Prophet" also has a blood-guzzling moment. Not long after the opening, the protagonist experienced a rite of passage of throat slitting and murder. But this was the man who was killed, and it became a lingering dream in Gibbena's heart.
The film's romantic approach is applied to Gibbena's psychological portrayal in this regard. The choreographer provided Gibbena with a considerable amount of interaction with the man he killed. The deceased could roam in Gibbena's cell and even communicate with Gibbena by insinuation and words (this communication is also with The revelation of religion, once again confirmed the three words of the prophet), such an interaction is both like a dream, like an illusion, more like a surreal expression. Each of their exchanges has a strong religious atmosphere, with many metaphors and rich connotations. It also implies Gibena's encounter and psychological transformation, leaving a lot of interesting places for audiences familiar with Islam and the Bible. .
From the whole movie, I got a very racist idea, be careful of the people, they are just devils.
On Saturday, the film won nine awards at the Caesars, known as the French Oscars, making it the biggest French film winner last year. I am very happy. I really hope he can make persistent efforts to win the Oscar for foreign language films in the future.
Check it out if you have the chance, you won't be disappointed!
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