An education

Un Prophète

Crit

Wow! OK, I've changed my mind about Das weiße Band probably having been the film screwed out of the Best Foreign Film Oscar. This is one amazing damned film--amazing in part because I had no idea it would be so inspirational and uplifting. No, really!

In a trajectory reminiscent of Michael Corleone's ascent, Malik (Tahar Rahim) grows up fast, learns fast, once isolationism proves untenable. Drafted by the kingpin of a Corsican prison mob (one of them named, in a half-second crowd-pleasing touch, Corleoni), Malik learns first how to hold a double-edged razor blade more or less safely in his mouth (after which you'd figure everything else would come pretty easily) to facilitate the assassination he must effect or die.

In what is probably my favorite (and certainly least expected) manifestation ever of magical realism, from then on the victim is Malik's friend, sounding board, mentor. Well, one of his mentors: there's also César (Niels Arestrup), the kingpin struggling to retain his crown after most of his gang is moved to prisons closer to home (and thus open to trusting an ethnic outsider); and Ryad (Adel Bencherif) who nudges him closer to Arab and Islamic solidarity.

As with The Godfather, this is the story of someone doing very wicked things, arguably without any choice in the matter. The choice lies in doing wicked things well or badly, and because we can sense what goes into making the "right" choice within that context, we really can't help rooting for our godson to triumph.