Word: audiard
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Directed by Jacques Audiard (“The Beat That My Heart Skipped”), the film follows the six-year sentence of a young, French-Arab man forced to navigate the hierarchy of a jail in present-day France. Though this scenario is seemingly ripe for political commentary, especially given the French government’s recent controversies with Arab immigrants, the only politics present in the film are those of the frightening world of prison. It strays from the spiritualizing of “Shawshank Redemption” while managing to go far beyond the ruthlessness...
...Audiard is an expert at using this trait of Rahim’s character early in the film to capture the empathy, if not sympathy, of the audience. As El Djebena prepares for his first hit to gain protection from the Corsicans, he sits in front of a mirror trying to teach himself how to hide a razorblade in the side of his mouth, and his gums begin to bleed. The look of agonizing determination in Rahim’s face at this and many moments in the film evoke a documentary authenticity. The typically circuitous plot twists...
...that can be made is simply that the film is, at two and a half hours, too long. At the same time though, nearly every moment is so fascinating and suspenseful that one doesn’t think too much about the time. To the credit of Audiard, it seems as though he truly did need 150 minutes to develop his complex plot and characters. The level of detail in the film almost necessitates a second viewing—if for no other reason than to better appreciate Niels Arestrup’s performance as the Corsican...
...Ghost Writer took in $870,000 on just 43 screens. But the big race, not so much at the box office as in this week's Oscar pools, was between two nominees for the foreign-language Academy Award, both of them released by Sony Pictures Classics. A Prophet, Jacques Audiard's French prison drama, opened to a decent $170,000 in nine theaters in New York and Los Angeles, while Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon made $168,000 in its ninth week of limited release. That movie has now passed $1.5 million in North America...
...films have been competing with each other ever since they premiered at last May's Cannes Film Festival, where The White Ribbon took first prize and A Prophet came in second. Haneke's picture is high-brow caviar, while Audiard's is more a crowd pleaser. On Saturday, The White Ribbon won the top award from the American Society of Cinematographers, beating Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds and Nine and solidifying its chances to win the Oscar in this category. Ah, but a week ago, at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, A Prophet beat...