Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet is a searing, violent, and totally unforgettable cinematic experience. This has got to be one of the most epic, primal, exciting, and all together riveting crime pictures ever made, or, at the very least, that I’ve ever seen. Don’t let the fact that it’s a three hour French prison film scare you away from seeing it, as I can almost promise that you’ll be locked into this film from frame one, as Audiard’s vice-grip direction is inescapably forceful and commanding. There are performances here that will shake you to your core, with the film possessing a screenplay that’s brilliant in its fine details, while the intimate, raw-nerve cinematography pulses with life, visceral tension, and edginess. There’s a shoot-out in A Prophet that ranks as one of the all-time best, not because of a huge body count or excessive amounts of gore/blood, but because of the importance it has within the narrative, and the bold and scary way in which Audiard shot and cut the sequence. I could go on and on but I won’t. If you care about movies, and if you haven’t seen this gale-force knock-out, make it a top priority. Audiard’s work overall is supremely impressive (few films hit harder than Rust and Bone) but this one is his crowning achievement that I’ve seen thus far. I can’t wait to see Dheepan.
Podcasting Them Softly 