Roma said: "We instinctively prefer those with evil signs and the neon lights of bars." French people are not necessarily used to the pungent excitement of bourbon, but they like to watch Chandler pass by. This wine-soaked script loves to look at Henry Bogart’s excessively drunken face and the never-extinguishing cigarette butt. People like noir movies for the same reasons: those fresh, black, unpretentious crimes, cruel motives, and irrational violence have become a slow-release agent for ordinary imaginary life, and booze without hangovers. . However, in French works, gangster movies or outright evil criminals are not as rampant as in Hollywood studios. They exist in many movies with a more hidden "black perception" and a destiny-like cage. Because French directors usually hate genre films, and film noir has gradually formed its own inherent mode with the anti-genre slogan. Truffaut once clearly stated that he hates gangster movies, he hates the clichés of genre movies, "If there are gangsters, it is hard to escape the corruption of the bourgeoisie". Therefore, works like "Scarface", "The Maltese Eagle" or "The Godfather" rarely appear in the French film scene.
After the premiere of "Prophet" at the Cannes Film Festival, it immediately ignited the enthusiasm of French audiences for gangster films. This is not a gangster movie in the ordinary sense, it is a gang theme filmed in French style. For American film critics or for French audiences, it suits the taste. Just like the American film critics were obsessed back then, watching "Shoot the Pianist" over and over again, they saw quite exotic anti-genre films, with a seemingly non-like criminal style, and a literary monologue with a French accent. On the other hand, the French audience seemed to have discovered the evil world buried downstairs. They no longer need to watch violent murders across the ocean across the screen. The appearance of "The Prophet" once again filled the gaps in the entry of French gangster films.
Unlike the Sicilian gangs in "The Godfather," "The Prophet" does not focus on describing any gangs, just like the male protagonist Malik in the film is neither Corsican nor Arab. In a sense, it is hard to call it a gangster movie, without a hero or villain as the protagonist. The protagonist is the kind of marginal figure that the director Jacques Odia loves to portray. This setting is similar to the idea of Truffaut many years ago. In an interview, Truffau explained the male protagonist he set for "Shoot the Pianist": "I like people who live outside of society, but who are not alone." It's just that Odia's favorite character Bitterluffer is more marginal, he likes to focus on those lonely people, young people who have nothing. In his view, the psychological growth that these marginal figures have to experience in the face of social grind is more full of passion for life than those who have already become big figures.
2. Anti-villain and anti-hero
From Odia’s works, one can always experience a kind of pulse of life.
At the beginning of the movie, there was a black screen, and the angry roar of the man could be heard in the background sound, from weak to strong, accompanied by the dull crash of the iron gate of the prison. The cut-in of the lens mimics the visual effect of opening human eyes: first, the eye-shaped light is opened in the dark, the picture is blurred, and the flicker is a few times. The first thing that appears in the field of vision is the handcuffed hands and the owner. Malik's childish face was full of doubts about the future. This unusual opening deliberately created the atmosphere of the baby's first appearance in the world, indicating that from this moment on, Malik was born like a newborn in this completely unfamiliar city. Just as Baudelaire walked into Paris for the first time, Henry Bogart entered the first night, Chandler drank his first sip of bourbon, and a brand new "dark city" was about to unfold before his eyes. Malik has no relatives, friends, or even enemies, no one cares about what he committed, and memories are of no use to him. He was penniless and ignorant. He was stripped naked before going to jail for inspection. He was just over 19 years old and he was just enough to squeeze into this corrupt and sinful city. He has no goals in life, and there is nothing to believe in. The freedom of the French and the sincerity of the Arabs flowed in his blood. He said he was religious but never prayed, and he ate pork. When others bullied him, he refused to admit defeat and would fight back, but he was still weak. He was coerced to kill by the Corsicans, and was humiliated, so he could only help others. The Arabs said he was a Corsican running dog, the Corsican laughed at his stupid Arab ancestry. In this world, he has no shortcuts, he can only survive in the cracks. In fact, he not only survived, but also created a whole new world of his own.
As such a misplaced, self-made little person, it is easy to think of Antonio Tony Montana in "Scarface". Both of them are also gang leaders who have gone from nothing to nothing. However, apart from this, it is difficult to find other similarities in them. It can be said that they are so similar in experience and different in personalities. And this is exactly what the director intends, he just wants to create an "anti-"Scarface"" character. He doesn't need an image of a vicious villain in the genre, nor an image of a hero against the system. What he wants to show is a member of society, an ordinary person who passes by us every day. This kind of character is exactly the male protagonist often seen in French youth films, represented by another work from the 1990s, Kasowitz's "The Young Furious". In these stunned youths, the racial contradictions and emotional epitome of the entire society are reflected. Different from the indifferent and alienated life of the middle class, their destiny is even more turbulent, and they often have to face life-and-death struggles and moral choices. However, this is different from the social approach shown in the Italian gangster film "Gamola". "Gamola" is completely realistic, exposing various social problems in a spliced way. "The Prophet" pays more attention to personal growth and the various choices an ordinary person has to make in the face of multiple pressures and challenges, including moral ones. Therefore, Odia did not want to use the film to achieve a certain political goal, he searched for the kind of philosophical speculation that was missing in the previous gangster films.
In order not to be killed by the Corsicans, Malik killed someone for the first time in his life after stubbornly fleeing. The deceased Rajab has always appeared next to Malik in the image of a ghost, adding a little bit of mystery to the film. The existence of ghosts is not the conscience or guilt of criminals in the usual sense. Instead, he revealed the key to the mysterious name of the film "The Prophet". The prophet was obviously referring to Malik, but when he was truly considered the prophet, he saw a deer flying over in advance, hitting the car window, and foreseeing an impending car accident on the road. In the film, Malik has always relied heavily on the advice of the ghost Rajab. He has no friends, and Rajab can always give him the correct answer in life. In fact, it can be considered that this is a shooting technique to show Malik's inner growth. The learned knowledge will be processed and reorganized in people's brains in a wonderful way. Every time when a question is encountered, it will go through a complicated process and quickly become a stressful answer. What the ghost Rajeb tells Malik is the reorganization of memories and knowledge that the brain inadvertently collects. He witnessed Malik's growth, and the day the ghost disappeared was the moment when Malik truly became a man and walked in society. He no longer needs to ask himself, because all the answers have been written in his heart.
Killing usually makes the protagonist fall into a kind of moral judgment. In the film, this incident is not unfolded as a moral topic. The director tries to present objective facts as a bystander. Prison is a rebuilt society. It is simpler and cruder. Human nature is not distinguished between good and evil, but more like a world of centralized monarchy. The Corsican gang headed by Caesar Lucianni not only wants to control the society in the prison, but also to use the society outside the prison to carry out economic development and consolidate its position in it. The success or failure of the power outside the prison and the economic struggle is clearly reflected in the daily life inside the prison.
Three, life on the edge
Throughout Jacques Odía’s previous works, regardless of male or female, his protagonists are figures who wander on the margins of society. Whether it’s Carla Bem, who must live on hearing aids and lip-reading in “Lip Terror”, or Tom Searle who is lost in violent youth in “The Rhythm of My Heart”, or “Prophet” Malik grew up hard in the "prison school". They all face the same predicament on different life trajectories-they cannot classify themselves, and cannot safely hide in the shadow of the huge group of society. They are not favored and understood, they must endure loneliness, trying to find their own rhythm of life on the verge of turbulent ambiguity in society. It is precisely because of this difference that the world in their eyes is also different from others. They can see the dim light in the darkness of life, and this dim light illuminates their progress. Cara can read lips, and she can know the secrets hidden by others; music is the most beautiful existence in Tom’s life, giving him shelter and letting him grow; Malik uses his vague identity to walk among different people, he Know both Corsican and Arabs. Until one day, they discovered that the so-called marginal life is that you can get whatever life you want. Just muster the courage and take a little step forward.
The reason why "The Prophet" has become Odia’s most successful work to date is that Malik has experienced the most difficult and long journey of transformation. It is no longer a love game in the two-person world in "Lip Cry", or "I The mischievous youth in "The Rhythm of Heart Forgotten" has an epic structure this time, like "a psychedelic adventure in a sinful underground world", involving many characters, but clearly organized. The whole movie is divided into eleven parts by the text title. The names of people in the title also have time stamps. Every time they appear, they represent another challenge and advancement in Malik's life. Every important person who appeared around him represented a group, even a nation, and they all found a point of integration in Malik. Although the director has repeatedly emphasized that the film does not reflect any real people, but he can still see his attitude towards French society from the lens. In the experience of Malik flying by plane, we can see the striking similarity between the prison and the society outside. At airports and prisons, he was searched, his documents checked, and food distributed by others. The only difference may be that you don’t have to take off your clothes at the airport. From this point of view, the prison is a world of evil built under a normal social structure, where the more instinctive side of human beings is reflected.
Finally, Malik walked out of the prison and was greeted by the wives and children of his deceased friends. The director did not give him a clearer and brighter future, but what is certain is that he has actually been walking on a path foreseen by his ancestors-"Life is indeed dark, unless there is hope, and all hope is blind, unless knowledge, and all knowledge is vain, unless there is work, and all work all of them vanity, unless there is love "(Kahlil Gibran).
reprinted please indicate: nine black
text published in" midnight movie · 》
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