New Cinema Wallpaper of the Day
Monday, June 1, 2009
A Prophet comes from the same producers of Black, which many of you might remember from its bow at the recent SXSW sidebar of Fantastic Fest titles. By the time I made it out to Cannes this year I still hadn’t seen Black and found myself with friends up in the hills of Cannes, France overlooking the Riviera at the official party for A Prophet. I had missed the screenings of A Prophet up to that point but decided at the least I should check it out even though I didn’t at all want to see a gritty prison drama. It really didn’t seem like something I’d like. I don’t recall if it was the next day or two days later but I was coming out of the second screening aka 9:00 Salle Du and noticed a small line of people clamoring to get in to see A Prophet. They were being told it was full so I proceeded to walk on but stopped a couple of steps later as bizarrely people were still rushing up to wait in line. About a minute later they let in a flurry of people but I unfortunately didn’t make the cut. I was beginning to think my chances of seeing it just weren’t in the cards. Cut to minutes later when I notice in the daily screening program there is a screening in one of the smaller theaters that at a glance would have been very easy to miss. As luck would have it I made it in and the rest as they say is history.
I think I’ll leave a good portion of my thoughts on this movie for a full review (to be published later) but I will say that the more I reflect on it, the more and more I like it. I was nervous for days after the fest contemplating when the overall buzz and hype of Cannes itself was gone how it would still affect me and play out in on reflection and perhaps not to surprisingly I just keep liking it more and more. Although primarily billed as a prison drama it really is the classic criminal rise to power story and struggle we have seen in movies ranging from Howard Hawks Scarface to the Roaring Twenties. I can’t really recall any movie in recent memory that had that kind of structure void of contemporary pop culture mechanisms and stylization. A Prophet feels so undeniably authentic even while having several surreal moments dancing through it. It’s the kind of movie that will not only stay with you for years and years, it’s also one you will more than likely still remember seeing it for the first time years later and the experience it brought as it unfolded. The great movies make us escape to a degree we completely forget we are even watching a movie to begin with and this is one grand great crime epic that ranks up there with the very best. I cannot wait for Sony Pictures Classics to release this in North America so I can see it again.
Related Coverage:
::: Cinema is Dope: Best of the 62nd Cannes Film Festival
Caption:
Niels Arestrup as Cesar and Tahar Rahim as Malik in A Prophet.
