Swide Magazine by Dolce&Gabbana

Being on everyone's lips is flattering, being in everyone's heart... an honour reserved to the truly great. That very path is the one being followed by young French actor Tahar Rahim as haunting film A Prophet is becoming a worldwide sensation.

Jacques Audiard made a film, very successfully so as per usual, and in doing so he "made" a legend; such lauding terms may seem overly enthusiastic, especially for those who know just how humble the legend in question is, but a performance this memorable deserves words this grand.

A Prophet is of the dramatic genre, is set in prison but somewhat calling it a prison drama makes it all sound all too petty; hit-TV series Oz is a prison drama (a good one), Audiard's film speaks the universal language of a tale of human nature. Human nature is all over the place: Good and Evil, dreams and egos, traumas and hopes. Writing the "legend" of Rahim wasn't just director Audiard but also fellow actor Niels Arestrup, another thespian verging on legendary. His character César isn't so much the antithesis of Malik (played by Rahim) as it is his salvation: in being involved in a sort of "pact with the devil" Malik doesn't so much lose himself as he gains a new strength. No longer surviving but living instead, no longer a drifting boat but a master of his own fate.

The film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May last year and did as well as one would have expected; although such success was something of a surprise to refreshingly unpretentious and spontaneous Tahar. There is something of the giddy child in him as he describes the Cannes experience. Being caught in a pleasantly insane hurricane of flashes and expensive jewellery, with the world at his feet and on its feet as A Prophet received unanimous acclaim in the Cannes auditorium after its world premiere.

"It felt as though the pleasure we experienced in making the film had somewhat made it onto the other side of the screen" says Rahim in remembering the first of his memorable nights. The next came a few months later at the Cesars award ceremony (the French Oscars or whatever you might like to call them): A Prophet won 'em all (pretty much), and so did Rahim, astonishingly enough Best Newcomer and Best Actor all in one night. Anecdotal but highly symbolic of his stellar debut.

Rahim got on stage, again looking like something of a giddy child, and thanked "la France du cinema"; quite the statement from an actor of Algerian descent considering the enduring difficulties still met by the community in France. A light-hearted and simple acceptance speech but still there wasn't a dry eye in the room, may they have been tears of joy or emotion.

A prophet was born, and we shall wait his return on the screens like we would the messiah.

 

 

Aurelie Bellavigna

 

TAGS: jaccques audiard tahar rahim niels arestrup a prophet cannes film festival cesars 2010