Jasper Rees

Bitter sweet

A patchwork family flee the Sri Lankan civil war for Paris, where Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or-winner reaches a climax of symphonic heft

issue 09 April 2016

The French master film-maker Jacques Audiard has never been anywhere near Hollywood plot school. His films contain gathering menace — something somewhere is going to go horribly wrong — but where the menace will come from, and who will get hurt, is anyone’s guess. In his astonishing prison drama A Prophet the threat to its greenhorn French-Arab inmate comes from all quarters until he himself evolves into the threat.

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