tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

Spout's Karina Longworth's review of Jacques Audiard's Un prophète (A Prophet) caught my atention not only because I am fascinated by the works of the French auteur but because she compares the performances of my favorite Romain Duris with newcomer Tahar Rahim:

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Like Audiard's last film, the excellent Fingers rethink The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet is an observational study of a young man of unusual intensity, whose deep brown-eyed charisma is a useful mask to distract from both what doesn't know and what he does. As the earlier film provided a breakout vehicle for Romain Duris, so the new one sears the presence of Tahar Rahim into memory. But where Duris' charisma was essential to setting up the dichotomy between his thugish day-to-day and his romantic, cultured secret life, Rahim's lure is that he keeps Malik almost completely enigmatic. Even his increasingly dope-infused fantasies - in which Reyeb appears, sometimes bathed in fire, adn through which he foresees an accident that will unexpectedly grease his criminal ascent -- tell us little about his inner life and long-term goals.

I considered Romain Duris' portrayal of Thomas Seyr, a young man who is forced to choose between a life as a petty criminal or become a pianist, as one of the most impressive acting piece I have watched over the years. Jacques Audiard has the reputation of making few movies - this decade alone, he only did three, including A Prophet, the movie that features the young Rahim.

Longworth is not the only one impressed with the young French actor.

Says Peter Brunette of The Hollywood Reporter:

First-time actor Tahar Rahim brilliantly embodies Malik El Djebena, a wayward Arab youth who lands in prison at the tender age of 19, unable to read or write. Upon arrival, he is cognizant of none of this forbidding place's dangers and at the mercy of all. The first half-hour of the film depicts the ever-present violence, assorted humiliations and constant struggle for survival that pervade prison life in startlingly authentic ways that must have sprung from real-life experiences. Forced under threat of death by the Corsican gang that effectively runs the prison to befriend and kill a fellow Arab, Malik is thenceforward aligned with the Corsicans, whom he serves as a kind of slave in exchange for their protection. As the years pass, however, Malik educates himself in so many different ways, both legitimate and illegitimate, that he ultimately manages to challenge the prison's power structure and, by playing different groups off each other in the outside world, begins to construct a little empire of his own.

Winner @Cannes 2009: Jacques Audiard's tough drama A Prophet, in which a young Arab man in a French prison is befriended by a Corsican mafioso, was given the Grand Prix - or runner-up award. The film and its young star, newcomer Tahar Rahim, will likely be two of the strongest contenders for the French Academy's 2010 César, while both A Prophet and The White Ribbon will just as likely be two of the top films in the running for the European Film Awards later this year. [ source: Alternative Film Guide ]

Watch for the trailer of A Prophet below:

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So, who is Tahar Rahim? IndieWIRE has a profile of the young actor, excerpts follow:

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Audiard's "A Prophet" has already been compared to Scorsese's nearly twenty year old "Goodfellas" many times over the past 24 hours here in France for its engaging examination of a seedy, gangster-driven underworld. Tahar Rahim's "Malik" is not unlike Ray Liotta's "Henry Hill." An innocent who quickly comes of age in the mob, yet can't evade the inner demons he's stirring with his shady activity. The young Arab is schooled in the ways of the mafia by a Corsican godfather, leading to an inevitable conflict. Tahar Rahim in Jacques Audiard's "The Prophet."

"I had to create somebody totally different and it was extremely difficult," Rahim explained, via a translator, yesterday here in Cannes, "I had to make up the role." The physically challenging performance forced him to work hard to create the role. "I studied," Rahim added, "I studied documentaries and various films about prisons and the prison environment."

"[He's] naive in a way," Audiard explained, during a translated press conference. "Almost a virgin, who utlimtlatey builds up his identity within his commmunity. "He's got no background, he is homeless. And at the end, he's got a story and an identity and a home to go to."

Rahim studied cinema in Montpelier, ultimately deciding that what he really wanted to do was act, so he moved to Paris to study the craft. While he has very few credits, one was on a series written by one of the film's co-writers, Abdel Raouf Dafri. Jacques Audiard met the younger actor rather randomly in the back of a car while Rahim was working with another friend and the director quickly realized that the actor would be perfect for the lead role in his new film. [ read more ]

More articles about Tahar Rahim and A Prophet: The Hollywood Reporter |  Time Out New York | Telerama with video clip

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