A Prophet is not an easy film to watch. Kid goes to prison and gets involved in organized crime. Sounds kinda simple, but it can be hard work. For a start, the film is in French and subtitled, but the lead character speaks French, Arabic and later some bits of Corsican. Now if you are a French speaker, you will probably recognize some of the language changes and therefore understand which people in the room understand each other and which people do not. As I was just reading the subtitles, a couple of times I was thinking, “Why is he saying that to person X when person Y is in the same room?”, only to realize that person Y didn’t understand that language. 🙂
Added to that the film is very violent. We are not talking Hollywood pretty violence or Tarrantino designer violence. It is dirty, grimey sickening violence. There is no attempt to make it palatable or glamorous. It’s horrible, like it would be in real life.
That all sounds pretty damning, but it the story is interesting and I think it is worthy, it’s just not wholesome family viewing.
Cheers
Tim…