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Schmucks, we ain’t talking of the Prophet here but A Prophet.

Verstehen?

Nein? Dann halt deine klappe.

Blessing our good fortune and thanking Bollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood et al for not releasing any films lately, we headed for Philadelphia yesterday for some Chaat and to watch the French movie A Prophet.

While the Chaat at Desi Chaat House was so-so, the movie A Prophet was so outstanding that we resolved to buy the DVD when it debuts.

At its most basic, A Prophet is a prison drama.

And not since Shawshank Redemption have we seen such a brilliant prison film.

Simply awesome, folks.

More than a Prison Film
A Prophet director Jacques Audiard’s name may not resonate with many.

The recipient of multiple awards in his native France, A Prophet is Audiard’s fifth film. You may rest assured that we’ll watch his previous films and maybe even review ‘em here.

Movie buffs may also recollect that A Prophet was one of only five films nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Oscars ceremony earlier this month (unfortunately, A Prophet was pipped to the post by the Spanish film El secreto de sus ojos (Argentina).

But A Prophet is more than just  a prison drama.

The film is also a richly layered gangster film tightly knotted into the tapestry of the prison story and its violent dramatis personae.

At the center of the film are the young Malik El Djebena (played to great elan by the young Tahar Rahim) and the old Corsican crime boss César Luciani (amazingly portrayed by Niels Arestrup).

While most kids spend their formative years in school, El Djebena is schooled in crime and wastes his early years in juvenile detention facilities and moves to a regular prison at the beginning of the film on a six-year-sentence.

Of course, life in the adult prison is no piece of cake for the young El Djebena, who is soon attacked and his sneakers stolen.

Ah, the theft of the sneakers is only a harbinger of the further ordeals that lie ahead of him. Soon, El Djebena is ordered by Luciani to kill another inmate Reyeb if he wants to survive in the prison and live under his protection.

So, does El Djebena suck Reyeb’s dick for some hash or does he kill him as ordered by the Corsican thug to save himself? Continue reading »

(For SI blog reader unknownvirus)

At last.

At last, we watched The White Ribbon (Das weiße Band), a movie we’d been planning on seeing for several weeks but could manage only this past Sunday in Philadelphia.

By now, the chattering classes must surely have heard of this German film, which won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009 and raised Austrian director Michael Haneke’s status further, an elevation the respected director was in no need of given the pedigree of his work.

Of course, here at the SI blog we’re no strangers to Michael Haneke, whose 2001 film The Piano Teacher we watched to great delight eight months back.

The Non-Avatar
A grim un-Avatarish black and white film set in a North German village Eichwald a year before the start of that first Great War, The White Ribbon is a disturbing movie about disturbing happenings that disturb the lives of people in the seemingly placid rural surroundings.

As with most things in life what is is seldom what it appears as.

And so it is in our village too.

You see, beneath the calm waters of everyday life in the village run swift undercurrents of violence. Continue reading »

Hey, do you think Indians will ever ‘get it’ that all flashing images on a screen don’t a movie make.

Attuned as desis are to watching the mindnumbing Bollywood junk, they have no benchmark or conception of quality films.

This post is part of our self-assigned Herculean mission to expose the unwashed masses to quality movies outside of their narrow selection and comfort zones.

Sin Nombre – Dark Movie
On Thursday, we watched Sin Nombre.

A Spanish language movie, Sin Nombre is a dark and harrowing look into the passage of poor, illegal immigrants from the deep bowels of Central America into the United States.

The first feature film of Cary Joji Fukunaga, Sin Nombre is a somber film that’s unlikely to leave you unmoved over the illegal immigrants who survive in the states doing the dirty, dangerous jobs that mainstream Americans just won’t do.

The movie is an exemplar of memorable intersections: of the dreaded Mara Salvatrucha gang with dysfunctional youngsters in the slums of Central America; of the members of the Mara Salvatrucha with the poor migrants heading north; of humanity with inhumanity on the train-top, even as the vicious gang members prey on them; of an unhappy ending with a happy ending; of fine acting and deft direction with a plausible, contemporary story that viewers can easily relate to. Continue reading »