Un prophète [A Prophet] (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

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MichaelB
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Un prophète [A Prophet] (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#1 Post by MichaelB » Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:53 am

I'm surprised to see so little discussion of this round these parts, especially as it's had plenty of festival play in the US (Telluride), Canada (Vancouver) and the UK (London, where it was one of the higher-profile showcase attractions), as well as hugely successful commercial releases in many Francophone countries. It was also voted Sight & Sound's Film of 2009 in their recent critics' poll, by all accounts by a very hefty margin. (I was one of the sixty contributors to the poll, and it was my number one vote too).

Anyway, believe the hype: Jacques Audiard has never made a bad film, but this is outstanding even for him. It's a prison film in the grand tradition of Don Siegel and Robert Bresson (both clear influences), and more than delivers the expected visceral thrills - a scene in which the still greenhorn protagonist Malik is "hired" (on pain of death for failure) to murder a high-profile witness with a razorblade concealed in his cheek is almost unwatchably tense, and other set-pieces are just as viscerally gripping.

But it's also an extraordinary dense and intricate multicultural character study, with Malik trying to build viable connections with the jail's French, Arab and Corsican factions while under understandable suspicion from all three - and power hierarchies can shift at a moment's notice, as when an influential block of prisoners is released on the same day. Audiard is so confident with his material that he's happy to subvert the apparent ultra-realism by throwing in a supernatural subplot without batting an eyelid (the "ghost" is almost certainly in Malik's head, but his appearances are completely matter-of-fact - Audiard described it as "un fantôme réaliste" when I interviewed him recently)

I suspect the film will look a fair bit different twenty years hence if Tahar Rahim becomes a star on the back of it - he was cast in the first place because Audiard wanted a total unknown, having previously relied on the already extant screen personae of the likes of Vincent Cassel, Emmanuelle Devos and Romain Duris. On the other hand, this could remain a brilliant one-off - Audiard is such a strong director of actors that it'll be interesting to see if Rahim can replicate the same intensity for someone else. And of course it won't hurt the film one iota if he can't.

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Finch
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#2 Post by Finch » Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:05 am

MichaelB wrote:It's a prison film in the grand tradition of Don Siegel and Robert Bresson (both clear influences).
I've wanted to see this since the buzz from Cannes but that one line makes me want to see it NOW. IMDB says it's out in Britain in late January; any idea, Michael, who the distributor is? Artificial Eye?

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MichaelB
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#3 Post by MichaelB » Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:18 am

Optimum. Normally this would be obvious Artificial Eye territory, but I suspect its Cannes premiere sparked off a ferocious bidding war.

It is indeed out in Britain on January 15, and in the US about a month later. Provided the (understandable) 18 certificate isn't a problem, I suspect it'll get shown at least as widely as The Class - this is about as close to a commercial dead cert as anything with subtitles. As Jonathan Romney pointed out in his article on the S&S poll:
Most of all, the poll marks a striking triumph for Jacques Audiard's A Prophet, a very individual work by a fastidious director who only makes one film every few years, each time setting himself a new challenge. His most ambitious film yet, A Prophet is at once a hybrid of crime genres - gang thriller and prison drama - and an incisive study in political realism, focusing on issues of racial and cultural identity in contemporary Europe. It is also an intensely entertaining film, which may help dispel the myth that serious film critics are devoted only to the most intractable cinematic 'broccoli'.

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Anhedionisiac
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#4 Post by Anhedionisiac » Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:20 pm

Having seen it, I can certainly join in the accolades that it's a very fine piece of work, as good as The Beat that My Heart Skipped and possibly even better. Niels Arestrup's performance and character are utterly heartbreaking.

That said, I'd like to address the supernatural subplot since it's the one detail that struck me as completely unnecessary and even false:
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for one thing, the claim that it's all in the main character's head is ridiculous since, for that to be true, he'd have to be utterly insane since he manages to hold entire conversations with him and even learn things that he presumably wouldn't know otherwise. This sort of thing may seem somewhat tricky to pull off but, really, it's fairly simple. A good example, and we don't even have to stray from the Collection to find it, would be the original 'Insomnia', where the main character's former partner, and now an apparition, does little else but loom in the background and serve both as a reminder of the character's guilt and increasing paranoia.
In the case of 'A Prophet', the way the apparition begins to manifest itself (bunking with his killer at night) is entirely plausible and a deft touch since it tells us that the character has to learn to live with his misdeeds if he wishes to survive. Acceptance of the ghost is acceptance of his new self. That said, it soon veers into magical realism territory and the whole point of it sort of capsizes unto itself.

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tenia
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#5 Post by tenia » Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:42 pm

SpoilerShow
Malik has a conscience that makes him anticipate the events. Some would call that wisdom. His conscience is Reyeb. But, this conscience is directly linked to his guilt. That's why the first appearance of Reyeb's ghost is, if I'm wnot wrong, the night just after the murder. He is asleep, in the foreground, in the back of Malik, himself asleep.

It's the ghost of guilt, very simply.
At the same time, he represents Malik's roots. The fact that he is a "brother" and the religious character of some of his appearances represent the cultural background of Malik.

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Sloper
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#6 Post by Sloper » Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:59 pm

Guardian interview with Audiard. I got a kick out of this bit:
Jason Solomons of The Guardian wrote:Before he goes, he tells me his favourite director of all is John Huston, because he didn't seem to be tied down by genres or laws. "While the City Sleeps, African Queen, these are my masterpieces," he says, and he enthuses about Huston's Fat City, a film whose final shot he says he keeps in his mind every time he gets behind the camera.

His enthusiasm stays with me because, a couple of nights later, I attend the London film festival awards where A Prophet wins and Anjelica Huston hands out the award to the film's young star, Tahar Rahim. After the prizegiving, I tell Anjelica what Audiard had said about her dad and that final shot of Fat City. Her eyes fill with tears. "That's my favourite moment in my dad's films, too," she gasps, as if she's seen a ghost. "I knew there was something about this film that spoke to me. I'm glad to know that, under my watch, the prize has gone to one of dad's kindred spirits."

j99
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#7 Post by j99 » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:00 pm

MichaelB wrote:I'm surprised to see so little discussion of this round these parts, especially as it's had plenty of festival play in the US (Telluride), Canada (Vancouver) and the UK (London, where it was one of the higher-profile showcase attractions), as well as hugely successful commercial releases in many Francophone countries. It was also voted Sight & Sound's Film of 2009 in their recent critics' poll, by all accounts by a very hefty margin. (I was one of the sixty contributors to the poll, and it was my number one vote too).

I'm looking forward to it. Perhaps the reason for the lack of interest is down to the gap between its Cannes win and release date. As I haven't seen it yet I can't really add anything apart from the copious amount of rave reviews the film has received.

I didn't realise you contributed to S&S; I read the contributors top 10s with interest. Unfortunately I haven't seen neither The White Ribbon (next week hopefully) nor Katalin Varga(sp) because I live out in the sticks (will probably have to wait for the DVD).

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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#8 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:32 pm

Not due out here until January, which is why I never bothered with the LFF screening. Sight and Sound might be jumping the gun on their readership a little.

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MichaelB
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#9 Post by MichaelB » Mon Dec 07, 2009 2:19 pm

thirtyframesasecond wrote:Not due out here until January, which is why I never bothered with the LFF screening. Sight and Sound might be jumping the gun on their readership a little.
The film had its world premiere in May 2009 and has already opened in several countries. Since it was an international poll for a magazine with a large overseas readership, it's clearly not realistic to expect everyone to cleave strictly to UK release dates.

Not least because one of the most valuable aspects of this exercise is the way that it highlights many films that currently have no British distribution - and may never get it. Including one of my choices, as it happens (Snow White and Russian Red, a safe bet for next year's Kinoteka, but I'd be pleasantly surprised if it progressed much further.)

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colinr0380
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#10 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:22 pm

I agree with MichaelB. The upper reaches of the chart are likely to get a wider theatrical and then DVD release sooner or later often on the back of their premieres, awards and associated screenings at various festivals. Pretending they don't exist, and therefore cannot be voted for, until officially released in a certain territory to coincide with their targeted advertising campaign seems a strange capitulation to the vagaries of distributors.

This can also be contrasted with a number of less celebrated films that received only one vote from the poll (e.g. Snow White and Russian Red) that are unlikely to get any distribution at all and for whom their festival appearance might have been their only chance for recognition by critics. Waiting for an eventual UK release in those cases might not be practical, and not mentioning them at all may even remove the possible chance of a future DVD release due to perceived 'lack of interest' in a title.

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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#11 Post by Grand Illusion » Thu Jan 14, 2010 4:38 am

I believe the rarely-earned compliment Godfather-esque is in order.

What truly mystifies me about A Prophet is the pace. Only a master like Audiard can blaze through his narrative, while still providing plenty of solitary, quiet, and character-building moments. I'm not going to lie here. I had to urinate about halfway through the film, but I waited the entire duration. Leaving the theater for any period of five minutes risks missing three or more plot developments. Yet nothing in the film seems rushed.

At awards' time, we often see the primary determinant for accolades, particularly editing, as the "most." As in, the award goes to the film with the most editing. Not the best editing; the most. An example would be any film with multiple story threads cut into a linear narrative.

After all, we, and the tastemakers, don't actually see what ends up on the cutting room floor, so how else can we determine editing? Well, I would propose A Prophet as one of the best-edited and best-paced films that I've ever seen.

This film takes the classic narrative dictum of "Arrive late; Leave early" to the extreme. Malik is deep in thought for one second, and then Cut, and we're in a completely different scene with his friend frantically asking him about a new plot of attack. The entire film moves from beat to beat with the exact same sense of swiftness.

Granted, the setpieces are wonderful and tense and all the laudatory superlatives. The best moments in the film for me come to us in Audiard's attention to the smallest details:
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My favorite examples: When Malik shoves the razor in his cheek and begins to bleed, the gradual realization is that he must improvise a new plan of murder. The high-angle shot on the snowy courtyard. The deer meat hanging, and Malik's meditation as he stands on a gorgeous beach. Our "prophet" spending a Biblical 40 days and 40 nights in darkness.

The slow-motion shot of Malik smiling while lying under a dead body being sprayed with bullets. He realizes that the bullets aren't hitting him, and he isn't going to die in the hail of gunfire. The shoebox of what Malik came into prison with, and a poignant character moment where he still takes the money out of the box and quietly pockets it. Keeping Cesar framed small and meek in a wide shot when Malik finally disposes of him, not violently but quietly and tragically for Cesar.

And, of course, the final poetic shot that says everything. Each successive vehicle gets larger and larger behind him as Malik feels free to walk the street. A perfect visual correlative to how Malik, the illiterate Arab kid, has built an empire. And also, perhaps controversially, how the mantle of crime has been passed from the Corsicans to the Muslims.
Tahar Rahim is extremely subtle and understated in his intelligence, learning, and calculation, which couldn't be more appropriate for the environment his character is in. And Niels Arestrup is a perfect foil, only showing glimpses of his rage when that rage is most needed or when the character has his back most against the wall. Due to a flawless combination of writing and performance, there's not a false moment in the two-hour-plus criss-crossing of their character arcs.

And speaking of the writing, the screenplay is sublime in how it gradually opens up the world to Malik.
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From a day's leave, to multiple missions, to Malik's first plane ride. A hilarious commentary on airport security is thrown into the gorgeous detour in the air. With a film that moves at such a breakneck pace, the film still finds time to linger in these little details that make Malik all the more human.
A tour de force.

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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#12 Post by MichaelB » Sun Feb 28, 2010 7:37 am

It's just swept the Cesars, bagging nine across pretty much every viable category (i.e. it never stood much of a chance at any of the Best Actress awards, and Costume Design might be a bit of a stretch too).

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tenia
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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#13 Post by tenia » Sun Feb 28, 2010 4:45 pm

I still think A l'origine should have won Best actor, and maybe best cinematography.

Giving Best male hope AND best actor to Tahar Rahim (+ the double nomination for François Cluzet and the Best female hope to Melanie Thierry who is known for 11 years now) is just the proof that we don't even have 5 good male French performance this year.

What a pity.

But Un prophète deserves all this praise anyway.

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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#14 Post by knives » Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:15 am

I saw this and enjoyed it well enough, but don't understand the hub-bub. It played out like a nice little gangster picture in the scarface mold, even though I must admit I enjoyed myself here more than with De Palma's remake, but I really don't see much beyond that. The stuff with guilt and multiculturalism while a nice addition it wasn't done any different than what's been seen at least hundred times. Being set primarily in the klink was a nice twist, but that's what all of this felt to me. A nice twist to an old story. I have to say though that I absolutely loved the whole sequence after the eye thing. If it had ended there I think my estimation of the film would be far higher.

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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#15 Post by Brian C » Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:53 am

knives wrote:I saw this and enjoyed it well enough, but don't understand the hub-bub. It played out like a nice little gangster picture in the scarface mold, even though I must admit I enjoyed myself here more than with De Palma's remake, but I really don't see much beyond that. The stuff with guilt and multiculturalism while a nice addition it wasn't done any different than what's been seen at least hundred times. Being set primarily in the klink was a nice twist, but that's what all of this felt to me. A nice twist to an old story. I have to say though that I absolutely loved the whole sequence after the eye thing. If it had ended there I think my estimation of the film would be far higher.
I agree with this. I thought it was somewhat glorious to watch - I'd recommend seeing it in a theater if you can - but ultimately I think you nail the story issues pretty dead-on.
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I thought the first half-hour or so - leading up to the murder - was pretty great, but I was disappointed in how conventional it felt after that. Audiard head-fakes in a more challenging direction than he actually takes, especially in the way Reyeb's ghost appears in Malik's cell. But while this provides an interesting window into the guilt that Malik feels, and later, a sense of having come to terms with what he's done, I don't think enough is done with this to make these insights into the character all that interesting.
In fact, I don't really think Malik's character in general was all that interesting. After his initial moral conflict, his motives are always pretty obvious and mostly banal, and he's too much of a blank slate to know how he's being affected psychologically. I didn't feel that Audiard was much interested how Malik feels about his situation, frankly, and most of the good character moments (as well as the film's sympathies, generally speaking) are given to César.

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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#16 Post by Zot! » Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:46 am

This IS a mainstream genre exercise, I'm not quite clear why you guys expected exciting new things from it. If every popcorn thriller was only half as good as this, I would be deliriously happy. I think it's head and shoulders above stale stuff like Hurt Locker and Shutter Island.

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Re: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#17 Post by knives » Sat Mar 20, 2010 12:42 pm

Zot! wrote: I think it's head and shoulders above stale stuff like Hurt Locker and Shutter Island.
Funny you should mention Shutter Island as its burning fantasy was in my mind during this one's, and I have to say that added to my disappointment as I thought that worked better as a popcorn flick with artistic integrity. This one just felt like top crust Luc Besson stuff to me, which isn't bad, but not as great as I feel some people making it out to be. What hurts even more is that there are several great movies waiting to come out and if Audiard had dropped a few sub-plots and focused in on certain aspects more I think it would have turned out better. As Brian C insinuated the first thirty minutes alone could make for a great character study. With that the racial elements also wouldn't feel as if they were there just for plot fodder. Really the whole film would have worked better if it slowed down and gave a genuine exploration of these truly interesting ideas it shows a few seconds before going back to the plot.

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Re: Blu-ray, in General

#18 Post by tavernier » Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:03 pm

Un Prophete coming on Blu from Sony on August 3:
Extras include deleted scenes, rehearsal footage, screen tests and audio commentary by director, lead actor and screenwriter.

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Re: Un Prophete (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#19 Post by jbeall » Wed Jun 16, 2010 6:58 pm

And if you don't want to wait, Optimum's UK disc is 45% off. No extras, but the price is right.

I was really impressed with this film. Just to throw it out there:
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is Reyeb really symbolic of Malik's guilt? That first night, when they're shown sleeping in the bed, I can see. But afterwards their relationship seems a little too amiable for Reyeb to represent any lingering guilt. If anything, he's a helpful "ghost"...

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Re: Un Prophete (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#20 Post by manicsounds » Wed Jun 16, 2010 9:45 pm

jbeall wrote:And if you don't want to wait, Optimum's UK disc is 45% off. No extras, but the price is right.

I was really impressed with this film. Just to throw it out there:
SpoilerShow
is Reyeb really symbolic of Malik's guilt? That first night, when they're shown sleeping in the bed, I can see. But afterwards their relationship seems a little too amiable for Reyeb to represent any lingering guilt. If anything, he's a helpful "ghost"...
The UK DVD and BD have lots of extras. The DVD is 2 discs.

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Re: Un Prophete (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#21 Post by tenia » Thu Jun 17, 2010 1:21 am

jbeall wrote:And if you don't want to wait, Optimum's UK disc is 45% off. No extras, but the price is right.

I was really impressed with this film. Just to throw it out there:
SpoilerShow
is Reyeb really symbolic of Malik's guilt? That first night, when they're shown sleeping in the bed, I can see. But afterwards their relationship seems a little too amiable for Reyeb to represent any lingering guilt. If anything, he's a helpful "ghost"...
SpoilerShow
It's this feeling of guilt which proves that Malik has a conscience, and it's this conscience that makes him kind of feel what will happens.
One could call that wisdom.

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jbeall
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Re: Un Prophete (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#22 Post by jbeall » Thu Jun 17, 2010 11:23 am

manicsounds wrote:The UK DVD and BD have lots of extras. The DVD is 2 discs.
?

Can't speak for the blu, but I got the dvd from amazon.co.uk and it's only one disc, with no extras.

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Sloper
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Re: Un Prophete (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#23 Post by Sloper » Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:20 pm

Same here, no extras on my copy.

Really impressive film in lots of ways - real edge-of-the-seat stuff. But I share some of Brian C's feelings about the film, and think the whole thing could have been tightened up quite a lot. In terms of character portrayal, this was very much in the vein of Audiard's A Self-Made Hero, which I also found quite unengaging, though great in some ways. The 'hero' of that film, like Malik, doesn't have the spark or ferocity of the protagonists in Read My Lips or The Beat that My Heart Skipped. These 'blank slates' are interesting in their own ways, but they don't make for really involving drama. And wonderful as Arestrup is - and he really, really is - his presence here threw into relief the shallowness of the central relationship in this film, compared to the father/son dynamic between Arestrup and Duris in The Beat. But perhaps I need to watch A Prophet again; I have a feeling there are hidden depths here that will only come out in repeated viewings.

As for Reyeb:
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I'm sure that, broadly speaking, tenia is right about this. Hence, it's very telling that the ghost disappears after Malik sells César down the river. It isn't so much that this act of betrayal constitutes a terrible moral transgression, since César is a truly loathsome and poisonous character, but it represents the completion of Malik's journey towards becoming such a character himself. Reyeb is then replaced by that cortège of black cars that follows Malik at the end. (Confession: I owe this insight to a poster on the imdb message boards, but it seems to make sense to me, even if the cars are not precisely meant to be an apparition. I'm sure there are other ways of reading the ending, though.)

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Re: Un Prophete (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#24 Post by j99 » Fri Jun 18, 2010 10:41 am

jbeall wrote:
manicsounds wrote:The UK DVD and BD have lots of extras. The DVD is 2 discs.
?

Can't speak for the blu, but I got the dvd from amazon.co.uk and it's only one disc, with no extras.
I got my copy from HMV and is one of their "exclusives". It's a 2 disc set with the extras the same as those on the BD.

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Re: Un Prophete (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

#25 Post by manicsounds » Mon Jun 28, 2010 5:39 am

I just assumed the DVD had the same.
I got the Bluray, and it has this:

•Trailer
•Deleted scenes with Director’s commentary (10 minutes)
•“A Prophet – Revealed” cast & crew featurette (14 minutes)
•Tahar Rahim screentests (5 minutes)
•Rehearsals (9 minutes)
•“Derrière les barreaux” (making of) from Antonin Peretjako (62 minutes)
•“Un Prophete à Chatenay” from Jean-Michel Correia (23 minutes)

Differing extras on the Sony US disc. The US gets a commentary, but loses the making of documentary...

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