Un profeta

Exactamente a medio camino entre el «más comercial» Enemigo público y la más «del cine arte» Gomorra. Elenco decente (otras caras mafiosas inolvidables: la audición es clave en estas películas). Tahar Rahim es excelente, las leyes del mundo criminal son directas y crudas. Simplemente tuve un pequeño problema para no perderme demasiado entre todos esos corsos, árabes e italianos, porque el personaje principal se mueve entre todos ellos y ellos estaban dispuestos a cooperar con cualquier otra parte solo para destruir a la tercera parte. (16.01.2010)

Don’t be scared of those 150 minutes declared by the movie. For me, that was one of the reasons why I kept postponing watching A Prophet and that was a great pity. It is a very strong gangster movie in which Tahar Rahim’s inconspicuous face constantly surprises you. You actually wouldn’t have thought that he could take what the screenwriters cooked up for him and despite his effort to lead normal life you can’t help but wonder whether you would be able to withstand such psychological stress in his place. And since they keep asking Tahar whether he eats pork, I’d like to invite him for a nice piece of pork chop with a potato salad for his performance… (24.02.2018)

An incredibly well-filmed mob movie, in which all the poetry of crime stems from negative vibrations, and the storyline of the rise of the rank-and-file to being the big boss draws energy from moral relativism. It seems like everything is allowed in today's world, so why not make a hero out of the defective product of a rotten society? I only regret that A Prophet did not express more temperance and ran to an epic width. Greater tightness and clearer dramaturgy would help the film out. Even so: together with Gomorrah and The Baader Meinhof Complex, this is one of the most disillusioning probes into the heart of darkness in contemporary Europe. (06.11.2009)

Hell on Earth begins for him, for me doors open into movie heaven. A picture that took great advantage of the “gap" in crime sagas, i.e. the time spent in prison. Usually movies begin at the end (or end and the beginning) of a prison term, or they jump it with a caption reading “X years later". Audiard manages to create a really raw and unpleasantly authentic atmosphere that is at the same time full of poetry, the type of stuff that Michael Mann often smuggles into his movies. Simply a masterly, slow-moving movie. Nothing more, nothing less. And nothing else is needed. (16.09.2009)

This is one of the hot candidates for the best film experience of the year, which surpasses even the very famous mafia sagas of the past. It is an unvarnished probe into today's French underworld, where a handheld camera and a selection of settings and actors provide fully authentic immersion into the world of thieves, all sorts of traders, and drug smugglers in today's multicultural France. French, Corsican, Arab, and Italian gangs compete for a place in the sun. The film depicts the rise of a petty delinquent from a Paris suburb who ends up in prison, builds his standing, and climbs the ladder in the art world thanks to the services of an experienced mafioso. Virtually every moment of the film felt believable to me and I had no problem with the logic of the plot, which rarely happens to me. Prison, as portrayed by Jacques Audiard, is an extremely unwelcoming place to live, and the view of underworld members is devoid of any nobility and mythology typical of American mafia sagas. However, the film has one flaw in that it is not all that accommodating to viewers, so it is sometimes quite difficult to orient oneself in the abundance of characters with typically Mediterranean-tanned features and in their motivations. Overall impression: 95%. In addition to the mentioned authenticity, the main advantage of Audiard's film is also the psychology of the characters. It is not just about types, as is the case with Tarantino, for example. (01.02.2010)

"La Rentrée du cinéma" en París comenzó para mí y mi querida en el elegante cine Saint-Germain des Prés, y elegimos la más audaz producción francesa, probablemente de todo el año 2009. Todos los periódicos, todas las revistas, todas las páginas web estuvieron unánimes en que esta película es una necesidad para todos los fans del cine. Desde los primeros minutos se puede reconocer el inmenso talento artesanal de J. Audiard. En Francia, es considerado como un director singular y original. La introducción de la película es bastante cruda, como es de esperar para un novato en prisión. El resto de la película se centra en sus acciones y lucha por sobrevivir entre los muros de la cárcel. Me complació la mezcla de idiomas: francés, corso, árabe, y también la impresionante música. Y como si Audiard quisiera aligerar la dureza y el naturalismo, añade un toque de poesía. Tahar Rahim y Niels Astrup merecen un gran reconocimiento por sus interpretaciones. En definitiva, desde mi punto de vista, es una excelente película, aunque no la considero el evento cinematográfico del año 2009. (14.09.2009)

Or how a modern-day The Godfather might look. The prison environment is captured well here and the razor blade scene will probably haunt my dreams. The execution of the razor blade killings is absolutely brilliant and gruesome. The main actor clicked with me, even though he's an asshole, he has something about him that can make you root for him or at least hope that he'll die later than the others. (18.08.2017)