This coming of age, or coming into oneself, film is perhaps simply a mechanism whereby the film creators could give some critiques of French society by showing the epitomy of deviance--a prison. Simply put, Malik is a prophet in the sense that he is the precurser of the kind of invididuals who will succeed in a system that is not intended for him to succeed in the way he did. In other words, he learned how to be a good, effective deviant in French society, and he taps into a larger network of deviants who are predominantly Muslim (or from traditionally muslim areas).
The idea of "deviance" in this case results from, I believe, a loss of innocence. True, Malik leaves the prison older, wiser, and better off, but, at the same time, it is important to note the methods of his success, namely murder and drug-running. While the first life he took was out of necessity to protect his own skin, he later took on other "projects" solely to advance himself in the criminal underworld, without external forces acting upon him unless they were actively pushing against him.
ReplyDeleteI find the title "prophet" to be a clear link to a Christ figure, though, in this case, antichrist might be more appropriate, as each of his actions can be seen as direct opposites to the traditional tale of Jesus. In order to be "reborn" Malik, instead of dying for the sins of another, takes the lives of Jackie Marciaggo's guards, and smiles as he bathes in their blood (his "baptism," as it were). Instead of being betrayed by his apostles, he betrays his patriarch. Instead of being tempted by the devil during his forty days and forty nights, he instead loses track of the ghost that was sometimes his tormentor, sometimes his ally.
In conclusion, I do believe Malik deserves the title "prophet," though "harbinger" might be more appropriate, as in a harbinger of war and death to come. Because of this, I respectfully disagree with the notion of him as a "good" deviant, despite the sympathetic light cast on him by the film.
Personally, I feel that the prison is not the epitome of deviance so much as it is the epitome of oppression. I believe that deviance occurs in the individual, and these individual deviants (Malik, Lucien, etc), are not the majority, and thereby do not represent the prison as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Adam in saying that "deviance" in regards to Un Prophet has much more to do with the loss of innocence than with an individual's gradual success through unconventional means. Malik, in order to survive, becomes a murderer and a drug dealer. The "profession" he decided to undertake whilst in prison cannot possibly be a good and effective way to portray deviance in French society. If anything, he did not deviate at all from the racial stereotypes that French society had already placed him in. He lived up to society's expectations of him: he became a murderer, a thief, a dealer, and the leader of a group of people whose lives were built solely around causing much more harm to society than good.
Although I do not believe that Malik represents deviance in French society, I do believe that he represents deviance within the society of the prison. Unlike the other inmates who succumbed to the wishes of Lucien's gang and their own demise, he slowly made his way up the prison's "food chain," until he was at the very top. Against all odds, he went from being the "under dog" to the "king of the jungle." In this way, he deviated from the norm of society. However, society as it is represented in the prison does not correlate with French society as a whole.