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Film: Read My Lips
Release date: 6th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 115 mins
Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Emmanuelle Devos, Olivier Gourmet, Olivier Perrier, Olivia Bonamy
Genre: Crime/Drama/Romance/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: France
Audiard has made waves with his twist on the crime genre. If A Prophet was the film that made his name, then Read My Lips is the film that first got him recognised. After A Self Made Hero and See How They Fall in the mid-90s, this 2001 release went on to cause a huge buzz in France. With Cesar nominations and awards galore, Audiard creates a probing look at the not so pretty side of Paris that has gone on to become his trademark.
Carla is a thirty-something office worker in central Paris. She is single and deaf with only a hearing aid to give her partial hearing. When she faints at work, Carla is offered an office assistant to help with her workload in the building industry. The agency sends her an attractive young man named Paul for the position - an ex-convict desperate to make an honest living whilst he is on parole.
Paul starts work, shakily struggling to get to grips with the office environment that is so foreign to him. When Carla finds him spending the night in one of the store rooms, she offers him a place to stay, giving him the keys to a flat in one of the company’s unfinished buildings. In response to Carla’s charity, Paul makes a sexual advance on her, but she turns him down much to his frustration.
Carla’s timid nature is not only affecting her personal relationships but is getting her no respect in her job - she has the ability to lip read and constantly picks up on her cruel colleague’s snipes and jeers about her. When she is overlooked for a lucrative opportunity at work, she asks Paul to help her get an upper hand on her disrespectful superiors, and he reluctantly steals files that help her seal a big deal with one of the company’s partners.
When Paul is called up by club owner Marchand, he is forced to leave the office to repay his debt, and Marchand makes him a bar-man at his club. When Paul dreams up a plan to scam Marchand, he calls Carla back into his life. He has thought up a plan to use Carla’s lip reading, and it’s time she repays him for his help...
Audiard is a director whose heart lies in his roots. Parisian born, Audiard is dedicated to telling stories in the backdrop of his home city. The French capitol is famed for its beauty and iconic scenery, but in Audiard’s Paris there is rarely a postcard picture in site - he surrounds his films with run-down buildings, dank city streets and ominous night life. This bleak version of the city is not an entirely new concept when considering the realism of classics like Irreversible and La Haine but Audiard installs an atmosphere entirely of his own.
He does this by portraying the mundane struggle of the inner-city as well it’s very exciting dangers. In The Beat That My Heart Skipped we saw the daily bump and grind of a real estate broker, in A Prophet the solitude of prison, and here the utterly dull routine of office work. Audiard’s world is an uncomfortable place to be, as it displays an air of discontent and turmoil in surroundings that are bleak with a capital B.
This discontent is felt most strongly here by Carla. She is an oddball whose behaviour is more empathetic than it is endearing - scenes of her stood naked in the mirror show her longing with agonising pain. She is an outcast as much for her timid nature as she is for her deafness - subsequently she is unappreciated by friends, disrespected by co-workers but also intriguing to Paul. With themes of crime and the complexity of the heist the two dream up, it is their relationship that is the film’s main drive and most appealing arc.
Their relationship is something all together uncomfortable and fascinating to watch. It evolves with a tension that is both sexual and emotional - Audiard puts his main focus on the complexity of his characters. The two leads are a most unlikely pairing, but what they lack in common ground they make up for with a shared vulnerability and lack of social place.
This leads to them having the most bizarre of cinematic understandings. They show a fair amount of contempt for each other also - their relationship is heated stemming from an early advance from Paul which is aggressive and entirely miscalculated. However, throughout the course of the film, we see how their extreme differences compensate for each other’s shortcomings. We see Paul defend Carla against an attacker in the same way we see Carla lying for Paul to his parole officer. They are two characters that alone are hopeless but together are something extremely special.
The romance is central to the film but the crime-drama motif that features is also done with the upmost conviction. Paul’s scam is simple but engrossingly risky. Working in a bar for Marchand, he is sent to deliver bottles of champagne to his boss and two of his shady associates in a flat opposite the club. He steals a copy of the key and tells Carla to watch and lip read the gang’s moves so they can steal the expectedly large riches they bring back to the flat. As Carla sits on a rooftop clad with a sleeping bag and binoculars, you can’t help but think of Rear Window - it is the tension and discomfort of watching them carry out their plan that truly matches the suspense of a Hitchcock film.
Emmanuelle Devos won the Cesar award for her performance, and it is a treat to see a strong female role stand out in Audiard’s work. He has made a habit of revolving his films around strong male leads, such as Roman Duris and, more recently, Tahar Rahim, but despite a great turn by the consistently watchable Cassel, it is Devos who really stands out here. Supported by a fantastic script, she plays the part as a timid loner for whom we feel every blow and put down, but simultaneously feel every piece of progress she makes.
For fans of A Prophet, this is a film you should strive to see. Audiard starts here his attack on the crime drama with a piece that is daringly erotic, entirely compelling and, despite its grim facade, beautiful. LW
Film: The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Release date: 27th March 2006
Certificate: 15
Running time: 102 mins
Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: Romain Duris, Neils Arestrup, Jonathan Zaccai, Gilles Cohen, Linh Dan Pham
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama/Romance/Thriller
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: France
Jaques Audiard recently stunned audiences with hard-hitting prison drama A Prophet, which has made him a very celebrated name in European cinema. He won a BAFTA for the film but it was not his first, Audiard got his first nod from the British Academy in 2005 with crime drama The Beat That My Heart Skipped. With a string of Cesar awards also, and the inclusion of rising star Romain Duris, this is not just about crime and punishment, it’s about the music, too.
28-year-old Tom Seyr is a forceful and foul tempered real estate broker. He lives alone, and is growing weary of his day to day crooked dealings; his work sees him planting rats in rival buildings, cutting corners on housing regulations and intimidating squatters out of his buildings. He works with like minded thugs Fabrice and Sami, but his roots in the business lie firmly with his low-life father Robert. As a son, Tom is overly-protective of his dad, and does him favours and collects his debts against his better judgement.
Tom’s departed mother was a concert pianist, and one evening he crosses paths with a former associate of hers, where he is offered the chance of an audition - the chance to re-live his childhood passion of playing music. Unsure at first, Tom balances business and pleasure, enlisting the tutelage of Miao Lin to help him prepare for a musical step up. She is a musical student and prodigy, and offers to teach Tom despite her inability to speak French. He begins to grow as a performer.
As Tom becomes more engrossed in his music, he becomes more disenchanted with his tainted occupation. Having previously covered for partner Fabrice’s infidelities, he begins an affair with his wife Aline. Things even more complicated when Robert begins to attract attention from a notorious Russian gangster, and with the audition coming in the very near future, Tom needs to decide where his priorities lie...
Audiard installs the realism here that went on to feature so prominently in A Prophet. He maintains a balance between the action and the mundane that allows us to feel the strain of Tom’s story, and all the sub-plots it diverts into. It also installs a sense of unease that is felt in all manner of situations, from Tom’s jumbled earlier piano practises to when he is seen tearing apart a guy in a bar fight. The origins of the constant menace of A Prophet is seen here with a dynamic that caters for sudden bursts of violence, musical interludes and afternoon cups of coffee in equal measure.
Another winning Audiard-esque quality is his ability to attract intensely talented young men as his protagonists. Recently we have seen Tahar Rahim as Malik, Vincent Cassel as Paul in Read My Lips, and here we have Romian Duris. Duris plays the part with hard-faced petulance - from the moment we see him he is an animated sight, twisting a lighter in his hand, with his face a frowning picture of unease. The focus of the story is a character study of Tom, and we see in Duris a range that allows this to become the most relevant issue to the audience.
2001’s Read My Lips featured a central relationship between Vincent Cassell and Emmanuelle Devos as a man and woman who form a relationship despite one of them being near deaf. A similar relationship is seen between Tom and Miao Lin, she can only speak Cantonese, Vietnamese and some English, yet their connection is one of the most heartfelt of the story. A scene in which we see Tom prompting his teacher to speak French with kitchen appliances is truly touching, and creates further empathy for Tom. Audiard again places a great emphasis on the altered ways that people connect; in this instance, music becomes the language that allows the two to understand each other.
Frustration can be found in the stories narrative. Tom’s life contrasts the ugliness of his job with the beauty of his music, and this personal battle does leave some things unresolved. Audiard complicates both sides of Tom’s life, but we never get to see him choose between the two. However, the realism and tone of the story does prevent any sort of happy ending from seeming out of place, and, in truth, there is some satisfaction felt with Tom’s final act of violence. Perhaps the way some things teeter out or drag on is all too honest of life.
Some mention should go to Niels Arestup. The actor, who went on to captivate audiences as bulldoggish mob boss Cesar in A Prophet, shows why Audiard thinks so highly of him. As Tom’s dad Richard, he transforms himself into an overbearing and toxic influence on Tom’s life.
This is a fine example of why Jaques Audiard is such a special talent. He features his mix of compelling characters, dominant realism and stunning violence to harrowingly portray the absorbing underbelly of Parisian life. Expect to see lots more of Romain Duris also after a performance that serves as a call card for his budding ability. All those who saw A Prophet and loved it are urged to jump on the Audiard bandwagon immediately. LW
Film: A Prophet
Release date: 7th June 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 149 mins
Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Hichem Yacoubi, Reda Kateb
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller/Action
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: France/Italy
This release brought about the return of the celebrated Jacques Audiard to award-winning form. Following the success of 2005’s The Beat That Skipped My Heart, Audiard was again given the nod by BAFTA, this after recognition at Cannes. Delving into a genre that has been ever present in modern cinema, how has A Prophet emerged as such a recognised crime classic amongst its contemporaries?
The film spans the six-year prison sentence of 19-year-old degenerate Malik El Djebena. Brecourt is a notorious hellhole where inmates rely on their connections to protect them against their ever present violent way of life. Malik’s North African descent places him bang in the middle of an ethnically split prison run by Corsicans and heavily inhabited by Arabs. Despite his illiteracy and minimal prospects, he concentrates on his future release and is a loner within the prison walls.
After Malik is forced to do a favour for prison ‘fat cat’ Cesar, his prison education begins, and he is taken under the wing of the Corsicans sitting on top of the prison pile. The years pass as Malik climbs the institutional ladder under the wing of the ruthless Cesar; he deals in drugs, takes part in hostage exchanges, and even facilitates assassinations. Malik’s cooperation has changed to enthusiasm as he begins to develop the know how to transcend his status as a petty errand boy.
Using his newly found status, and with connections that stretch outside the prison walls, Malik sets out to go in to business for himself. He is not just working to leave the shadow of Cesar and his crew but to survive his sentence...
The most forceful device of Audiard’s film is the realism he installs from the get go. The fear and bursts of ultra-violence go hand in hand with the drab solitude and boredom of prison life. There is an ever present sense of the length of Malik’s sentence, as the hours and days pass we see him in his cell, enduring mindless jobs, bored in classes and alone in the yard. The contrast of action and daily grind makes for engrossingly uneasy watching as we feel Malik’s trepidation in such unpredictable surroundings.
Malik’s journey is in no way a typical rise in the crime world. From the moment we see him, he is the picture of an awkward teenage troublemaker; irritable, aggressive and irreconcilable. For him, this is not about moral discovery or redemption as genre character typing may dictate. He has no morality and he is not fighting for redemption, the only thing he cares about is finishing his time in one piece.
Such moral inclination is demonstrated in the film’s most effectively violent scenes, as Malik is forced into his first job for the Corsicans, a hit on potential rat Reyab. The blood spilling tussle is hard to watch but impossible to turn away from as Malik frightfully botches the planned hit - the realism of the film extends to its many layers and this sets an ominous tone for the two hours ahead. If visions of Reyab’s ghost are appealing to Malik’s guilt or integrity, he dismisses them with his typical nonchalance - he is doing what needs to be done.
Rahim Tahar’s hard-faced performance sees him emerge from this film as a face to watch but he’s not the only actor to make an impression. Niels Arestup plays the part of Cesar Luciani with terrifying effect. He is a chain smoking, vicious and erratic mob boss whose presence in the film is consistently menacing and never trustworthy. If classics such as Goodfellas showed off camaraderie between criminals, A Prophet focuses on a shifting of allegiances and self-preservation that is just as absorbing. Do not expect to see a father like mentor in Arestup’s character, he rules with a bulldoggish resolve and fear. The altercations between Cesar and Malik show how Audiard is able to shift tone to the greatest effect.
A lack of empathy set about by Malik does not derive from the pleasure of seeing him grow and succeed. He juggles with the loyalties of the Corsicans and the Arabs with a newly found cunning and under the influence of those who try to control him. His rise comments heavily on the influence of incarceration, starting as a boy with nothing to offer on the outside Malik is honed with the skills to succeed on the inside - his transformation shows the value (or danger) of a prison upbringing. Malik is a product of his environment.
The violence is harrowing and provides some of the most unforgettable images ever seen in prison drama. That said, A Prophet succeeds where so many have failed by not making this the sole focus of the picture. Audiard achieves a much more cerebral approach to the criminal world; a vision of prison being that is intensely believable. Oscar buzz and awards galore aside this is a film that deserves your attention. A true benchmark in a done-to-death genre. LW
Release date: 7th June 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 149 mins
Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller/Action
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: France/Italy
Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet carries with it an impressive list of credentials - an Academy Award Nomination, a BAFTA win, a Golden Globe Nomination, the Grand Prize of the Jury Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and nine French Cesar Awards including Best Film, and that’s just the icing on the cake. With this level of acclaim, you’d be forgiven for carrying a certain weight of expectation.
Sentenced to six years for what is never made entirely clear (though violence toward the law is hinted at an early stage), 19-year-old Malik El Djebena (an excellent Tahar Rahim) finds himself thrust into one of France’s toughest prisons. With no friends and no contacts, and not exactly physically imposing, Malik sticks out like a sore thumb, and subsequently struggles to adapt to his new life inside.
Spotting an opportunity to use him to his own gain, Veteran inmate and Mafia kingpin Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup) offers to protect Malik in return for favours. Soon enough, Cesar has him doing all his dirty work, including killing a fellow inmate in one of the films more intense set pieces.
For a large amount of his time Malik goes about his business while completely under the thumb of his Mafia boss, who is so powerful, he essentially has the prison staff in his pocket.
Feeling deflated and used, Malik soon learns to read and write, and slowly learns the tricks of the trade, and becomes more influential as a result. With twelve-hour day releases, he is able to run errands on the outside, while simultaneously building his own drugs racket.
He soon develops more respect from his fellow inmates, much to the annoyance of his mafia boss, who wants him to have no ties with anyone but himself. As events unfold, it’s not long before he refuses to jump through Cesar’s hoops, plotting his own ascendancy through the violent and brutal hierarchy of his fellow inmates to become a formidable player in his own right…
Director Jacques Audiard creates a gritty and realistic prison environment. He is aided by some terrific performances, most notably from Tahar Rahim, who is the driving force throughout. There is seldom a scene without him. What makes us root for Malik is the boyish naivety he possesses. Even when he’s slicing a man’s throat or beating fellow inmates with heavy objects, you always get the sense that Malik is doing it because he has to. He is putty in the Mafia’s hand. He’s cornered and if he doesn’t do as he’s told, he’s a dead man. Our sympathy for him is prevalent throughout. We are left in no doubt that he is at the lower end of the pecking order amongst his mafia friends, being ordered around like an unwelcome guest, making coffee and delivering bread.
Quite touchingly, upon his day releases, we witness his delight at being on a plane for the first time, gawping in awe at the views above, and enjoying a paddle on the beach - later caressing the sand from his shoes when back in his cell at night. This is a man who clearly hasn’t had much of the happier things in life.
A Prophet, however, is not without its faults. The intricacies of the plot are not always easy to follow. Who’s doing what and why is a question you may find yourself asking more than once, and repeat viewings are perhaps necessary to fully understand its double dealings.
The two-and-a-half-hour running time is, at times, felt. The first 45 minutes fly by, but thereafter, the momentum occasionally drops, and your focus may wander. This is due in no small part to prison life being swapped at frequent intervals for the criminal activities on the outside, as Malik is put to work outside his prison walls, which is simply not as interesting or compelling.
A supernatural element, which takes place throughout, seems at odds with the rest of the film, as Malik’s first murder victim appears regularly in his cell, perhaps the ghostly image of Malik’s conscience, or is Malik simply going insane? We never really find out.
There are echoes of other prison/crime dramas throughout, with a number of scenes reminding you of greats such as The Godfather and The Shawshank Redemption, whilst Rahim resembles a young De Niro, especially when cradling his brother’s baby.
A prophet delivers an expansive and, at times, riveting portrayal of French prison life and criminal activity, but ultimately suffers from a convoluted and familiar plot, and some long lapses in momentum. Thank goodness for Tahar Rahim, the films major saving grace, who delivers one of the best performances of recent times. It is he who is most deserving of the acclaim. GY
Director Jacques Audiard (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) brought us one of the most acclaimed releases of 2009. A Prophet won the 2009 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix, took home the Best Film Award at the London Film Festival, and was France’s official selection for the 2010 Academy Awards…
Condemned to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena cannot read nor write. Arriving at the jail entirely alone, he appears younger and more fragile than the other convicts. He is 19 years old. Cornered by the leader of the Corsican gang who rules the prison, he is given a number of “missions” to carry out, toughening him up and gaining the gang leader’s confidence in the process. But Malik is brave and a fast learner, daring to secretly develop his own plans…
At the Cannes press conference you spoke a little about the irony in the title of A Prophet…
Because this dimension is real but apparently it isn’t evident - the film could be called Little Big Man, for example. The title acts as a sort of injunction, obliging someone to understand something which isn’t necessarily developed in the film, namely that we’re dealing with a little prophet, a new prototype of guy.
Originally I wanted to find a French equivalent of ‘You Gotta Serve Somebody’ - a Bob Dylan song that says that we are always in the service of someone. I liked the fatalism and the moral dimension of this title but I simply never found a satisfying translation, so it stayed A Prophet.
How did you come to tell the story?
What interested both myself and my co-writer Thomas Bidegain was to ask how we could begin with the subject by Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit and create a pertinent cinematic story. We had to find a manner to make A Prophet resonate in a contemporary way.
We wanted to create heroes from people that we didn’t know, that didn’t already have an iconic representation in cinema, like the Arabs, for example. In France, the tendency in cinema is to put them in representations that are naturalistic or sociological. So, we wanted to do a pure genre film, a little in the manner of a western that spotlights people we don’t know and transforms them into heroes.
What made you want to cast the angel-faced Tahar Rahim in the role of Malik El Djebena?
I was always attracted to certain masculine prototypes that weren’t necessarily characterised by their levels of testosterone. In more than one way, I could make the connection between Matthieu Kassovitz, with whom I worked with several times, and Tahar Rahim. Not necessarily in that one makes me think of the other, but both are male prototypes to which I am sensitive.
Was it also a way of allowing the spectator to identify with the character?
I have problems projecting identification beyond myself but, of course, there was that desire. I found it more pertinent than the usual prison film cliché of having the place full of super virile men. The convicts in my film aren’t muscle men, they’re not made for this environment, but, paradoxically, they go to develop the qualities that permit them to rise above and dominate.
Through the character of Malik, the film conveys the idea that the knowledge and ‘know how’ give access to power…
Yes, and it’s this that I find the most interesting. This type of person breaks the mould - he’s not your usual hooligan. Following Malik, we see his mind at work - a mind that shows phenomenal adaptability that this character will use for any opportunistic possibility, at first to save his skin, then to survive and improve his lot, and finally to reach another level of power.
This dimension of the film evokes another of your characters, Dehousse in Un Héros Très Discret…
Yes, you could say that these characters are models of a certain type of education. The initial principal is to introduce these people their greatest destitution then giving them an opportunity, a possibility to construct a heroic personality. The story of A Prophet, depicts someone who reaches a position that he could never have attained had he not gone to prison. Here lies the paradox.
How did you structure this desire to turn Malik into a ‘hero’?
In part, from following the image of Arabs in cinema, which is either stupid – and sees them represented as terrorists - or simply naturalistic, in a sort of social realist context. It was this that brought me very quickly to the question of the choice of actors.
For the role of Malik, we needed someone extremely polymorphic who would correspond perfectly to the theme of identity in the film. A young man, who has no history, yet will write one before our very eyes. From early on we knew this role couldn’t be filled by a known actor precisely because it’s a story of a rise to power - to visibility.
Was there also the desire to decompartmentalise French cinema?
It’s inherent in the project. I don’t have a long filmography, I’ve only directed five films. I’ve worked with Matthieu Kassovitz, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, and other actors of formidable talent, but after The Beat That My Heart Skipped, I wanted to work with unknowns. This idea went hand in hand with the feeling that cinema should have a strong social inscription that if it doesn’t recount the world as it is, as it plays out, then what use is it? When I say that, it’s not a polemic, it’s just my way of registering fiction into what would seem to be reality. I think that in France today, cinema is incredibly reductive on this point of view. I don’t know of which reality French cinema speaks of. Therefore the film was to break down this idea of casting as much as it was to take into account the fact that the world changes and that heroic figures must evolve. In my mind there are new mythologies to build on new faces and new routes to follow.
Malik seems to have a detached and opportunist rapport with his identity…
The Corsicans consider him an Arab, and the Arabs as a Corsican. He is permanently between the two camps. However, he will naturally lean towards his community. It’s here that he will discover something he has been ignoring. The same as he’s a particular kind of hooligan, he’s also a particular kind of believer.
Can you talk to us about the ghost that accompanies Malik and that inspires his mystical visions?
The film does have fantastical moments but it’s not because of an intention to be mystical. Reyeb’s ghost comes from the scriptwriters as a way of helping us into the possibilities - a way of to passing into a level of imagination that helps us free what has already been told. It’s also thanks to him that we also invoke the ideas of Sufism and the Dervishes, and allows the screenplay to take on another dimension.
There is a trend in current cinema for darker, more damaged heroes. In A Prophet you take someone who is damaged yet lead them toward a kind of redemption…
And with tools that wouldn’t be recommendable. There is always a default way of making anti-heroes. This doesn’t interest me so much. Me, I like my heroes to learn something - to put it to use. I find that cinema has that function: it looks at the real to teach us how to use it. Perhaps the lesson which strikes Malik is paradoxical, but it’s this which interests me.
In any case, it says that you have to learn…
To learn, to be attentive, to not open one’s mouth all the time, to be reserved, and most of all to not make the same mistake twice, because the third time you’ll be dead.
Is A Prophet, according to you, a moral film?
Yes, what would have been immoral would have been to create a character without conscience. However, he is conscious of both good and evil precisely because evil has been done to him.
How do you explain Malikʼs mysterious smile at the moment of the shooting?
Malik suddenly has the feeling of being in a film, and has the feeling of invulnerability, like a fictional character, whereas the others are reaching a stalemate in the events which are unfolding. Malik is a person who, instead of getting heavier under the weight of things he lives through, he gets lighter, and will free himself, little by little.
Is the prison a metaphor?
Evidently, genre films always present themselves as metaphor. The character was incarcerated for a long sentence. The intention was that he would understand within himself that which would serve him later, on the outside, therefore arriving at a parallel between the two universes.
You define the character of Cesar, played by Niels Arestrup, like a king without entertainment…
Yes, in reference to the characters of Giono. A king, an ogre at the end of his road that will reign over a tribe of spiders.
It seems that the character of Cesar is based on an almost mythical archetype…
It’s true, but we didn’t want to be too literal. Niels Arestrup in the role of a Corsican Godfather is fairly improbable, and it’s because of this condition that the film reverberates in a more interesting way.
How would you characterise his particular relationship to Malik?
At the time of writing, we really wanted to maximise the idea of a father/son to underscore the master/slave relationship. Cesar is not the father of Malik, but he holds him under his power - he is hard with him and shows no paternal tenderness at all. There is no sentiment of friendship nor affection between them - it is uniquely a relationship of control.
Your other films show a tendency towards great love stories, and A Prophet seems rather abruptly stripped of this. Why?
I think it’s linked to Malik, at what we make him do. As Malik is really someone who comes from nowhere, there simply isn’t time to construct a love story. It’s for this reason, at the end of the film, that we suggest he could be with Djamila. Because his life was ‘amputated’ very early on by prison, he takes on the life of someone else, which, of course, suits him fine. With this conclusion, we wanted to suggest that taking his place beside Djamila was his intention all along. It’s both peaceful and calming, and he’ll probably make a great father.
The ending of the film suggests there could be a sequel…
Indeed. It does induce us to question Malik’s destiny with this woman, this child and his life stretched out before him. Especially since Malik is a hooligan that hates hooligans, finding them unreliable, stupid and dangerous. He is someone with a very critical viewpoint. He wouldn’t tolerate bling or outward signs of hooliganism.
If there was a sequel, what would it be about?
I would like to see Malik continue to develop his skills and watch him learn. A little like in The Beat That My Heart Skipped. That through trying to become a concert pianist the hero becomes really competent. He’s like Malik, we leave everything just formed and we sense that he has an interesting future…
We have the feeling that one of your talents as a director is to create the ideal conditions to make a film: you take your time to write, to cast and to shoot…
What you say pre-supposes that I’m conscious of myself in some way – which I’m not! Only production companies like Why Not can make the object coincide with the tool. Elsewhere it would be complicated for me. To direct a film is something difficult, very heavy. Anyway, it’s the only profession that I’m capable of.
I believe that people see qualities in me that I don’t necessarily feel I have. Those that surround me have more confidence in my abilities, and it’s these people who push me forward. The fact that I took a long time to write, that I fully metabolised my story, that I questioned it, that I fully questioned the pertinence of the subject, to have searched and immersed myself in a real cinema project, to have followed a long preparatory phase – gave me the feeling of knowing what the film should be like. After this, you have to make others understand the world in which the film is situated, and this phase is a passionate one. It’s a process that makes cinema unique, when we collectively make a creative project. The only thing that I know for certain is in which conditions and how the film needs to shine from the fundamentals. Sometimes the collective conscious doesn’t work at every level, and that can be accompanied by moments of loneliness or doubt. There are moments when I no longer know what makes sense. It’s for this reason that I’m both happy and grateful for the support and of the people with whom I work.
On this film, did you feel any constraints by the budget?
I felt the pressure on many levels on this film! It’s a dense screenplay which we already estimated would be 2 hours 30 running time before shooting, so we knew it would be a long and difficult shoot. As well as this, it was impossible to film in natural surroundings, so we had to construct a prison - an essential step, but one that removed us a little from naturalism but imposing nonetheless. Next we had to populate the prison, to give it life, and that constitutes a considerable amount of people to organise each day on set. So, at that point, the prison itself was a character with its significant part to play. In directing the mise en scène, you had to work in reverse and put the background in place before the actors. It’s this aspect which most signified the constraints and upheaval to shoot in such an environment.
Were you conscious while making A Prophet that you were making a film that was anchored in popular culture?
This is what I wanted to do. For as much, we wanted to make an anti Scarface. For me, neurotics are pure cretins and simply can’t be objects for identification. The rise to power of an absolute crazy person doest interest me at all. On the other hand, a film like La Haine by Matthieu Kassovitz touches on something that I’m sensitive to. It’s no co-incidence that A Prophet occasionally inhabits the same terrain. These two films a looking to denounce that there is something missing in cinema.
You are recognised as being a great director of actors. How do you approach this side of your work?
With the actors, we go deep into stripping down the character, but it’s only possible to go so far if you accompany them in their states. If you remain clothed, if you express your fear, your concern, you won’t have the engagement of the actors. You have to be with them, to go through the same surprises, to doubt together and to be scared all the time together…otherwise, as soon as these things become ‘accepted’, it’s like sleeping.
What do you expect from an actor?
What I’m looking for in an actor is precisely what I’m not expecting. That they are capable of producing something that I didn’t prepare. And I think it’s also what they wish, that the devices I set up for them will take them to a new place.
Since your first films, your cinema seems to be released from the constraints of the traditional framework…
Indeed, beforehand I was in a more geometric or mechanical way of working. I thought of the technical aspect before thinking of the acting. But since Read My Lips, the reverse became apparent. Even if technical aspect was important, it’s the actor that counts first.
In all of your films, there is a point where the image is totally obscured leaving only one detail…
Yes, it’s a little effect I call ‘La Mano Negra’, which I did for my super 8 films, and now I do it on a larger scale - it’s an expensive special effect. In fact, it’s just because I find sometimes that there is too much image, too much light, too much ‘field’ - that it’s too open and it needs to be reduced. These are completely fetishist relationships I have to the image. I am always amazed by the image of silent films which come to us after generations of inter-positives and inter-negatives. They seem to emerge from such a faraway world.
Is it a form of signature?
No, and I would have to stop if it seemed that way. I do feel that I have to stop with the film and chemical tools. It’s a relationship that’s too fetishist, which can be imprisoning. I no longer know if it’s a good tool for looking at the world.
It’s something we can only imagine in cinemascope…
I tried lots of different material for this film: HD, 16mm, ultra-light cameras, and a whole lot of things which failed to impress me. Of course, I thought of scope, but I didn’t retain the idea because scope means I was obliged to define too much. I thought I’d be really unhappy after two weeks, because the story and the set design was creating real antibodies in me… I tested a few stylistic things on the side, which would never have really worked. But finally it was the film which dictated its own aesthetic, an aesthetic that was set in stone.
Would you like to shoot more often?
Yes. When everything goes well, I make a film every three to four years. I would like to shoot more because it solves a number of problems – most notably the fear. I think that I’m too apprehensive, that I write for too long. We took three years to write this script – that’s too long.
You donʼt want to write any longer?
No, it’s really clear for me. I can’t do it anymore. All these themes that begin to interest me but hang on me like an old pair of trousers. On set, the script ends up being boring for me - I have the impression that I know it by heart and I doubt myself. I want it to happen a different way. One evening during the shoot, the script assistant came to see me and said, “You have to stop doubting the script,” implying that I was hitting a brick wall. I think that if I wasn’t so implicated in every stage of the script, and if I shot more often, I would feel much freer. OP
Interview courtesy Optimum Releasing.
