Une Prophete (Jacques Audiard)

A microcosm of French society in a gritty jail drama - great performances and fabulous cinematography by Stephane Fontaine. I'm yet to see Audiard's earlier films and I got hold of this one quite accidentally but it was quite a treat. The camerawork is fantastic - handheld without being intrusive at all. So the privacy of all the moments is preserved beautifully - for instance, the scene where El Djebena practices with the blade in his mouth. Personally, the best scenes in the film are the ones where Djebena steps out of jail on his leave days - the deer ramming into the car, the swap deal in the house, stepping out when day's breaking and you can feel the nip in the air - beautiful! Majority of contemporary European cinema is shot handheld and more often than not, it really adds a lot of dynamism. The best example would probably be Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days. Une Prophete doesn't take the same route of long single-take scenes but short effective ones. The character development is fantastic as you see the ups-and-downs in Malik's prison life. Audiard has left the cliches of stank toilets and dark dirty rooms far behind him - choosing instead to engage the audience with the power struggles of prison life.

A must-watch.