Prophet

The main French winner at the 2009 Cannes fest, A Prophet, is a nominee for the foreign-language Oscar. It won't win, of course, because it's up against the Austrian entry, The White Ribbon, which has triumphed in all contests so far.

Praised as a parable foretelling Austro-Germanic readiness for National Socialism, that black-and-white tableau could have been a masterpiece if it had known how to end meaningfully. That's another story, though.

It's A Prophet's ending that bothers me now. It also maims a potential masterpiece, by craftily constructing a feel-good finale to a tale of a descent into moral Hell.

The anti-hero starts out as an insignificant Arab teenager in a French prison dominated by a clique of Corsican gangsters. President Sarkozy's decision to move most Corsican convicts closer to their home island changes the prison's power game. The Muslims have a chance to assert themselves but the anti-hero decides to stay alongside his old Corsican mentor. The cast of criminal characters expands, both in the prison (adding a Gypsy drug dealer, an Egyptian operative and token blacks) and outside (where an Italian gang and a released prison pal with testicular cancer are drawn into the plot strands).

Clearly drawn from real-life experiences, the film becomes a complex onion of a semi-documentary, discreetly dressed with telling details. However, there is a fantastic quality in the development of the Arabic anti-hero, convincingly portrayed by a newcomer who deserved his Cannes Best Actor nod. He transforms himself from an invisible Arab gopher into a hitman, a Corsican-speaking henchman taking advantage of day-long paroles to build his own drug operation on the outside. He grabs a position of power inside, as a multi-cultural wheeler-dealer getting in-house sex and drugs.

In a cliched movie, he'd spin out of control a la Scarface or mature melodramatically a la Godfathers. Instead, he walks into a sunrise with an inherited wife and son, followed by a respectful retinue. Or is it meant to be viewed as a cortege? No, I'm sure it's deliberately hopeful. He's become a prophetic figure, and audiences are left to prophesy his future. It all appeared too pat to be truly credible. So did the village at the end of The White Ribbon.