Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a couple of films that are making their way into art houses around America this week (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you). Enjoy…

A PROPHET (UN PROPHÉTE)
If your plan is to spend the weekend catching up on Oscar nominees before Sunday night's big ceremony, don't forget that France's Best Foreign Language nominee is expandinging this weekend. This sweeping epic is a brutal coming-of-age film about Malik (Tahar Rahim), a mousy, illiterate thug of Arab decent, who gets thrown in jail for six years at age 19, and not only toughens up over the years but rises up through the French prison system to become one the key importers of contraband (everything from iPods and DVD players to drugs) into the prison. He is weak and far too young for this world, and is targeted early on by everyone. But when he comes under the protective wing of some mafia-connected Corsican prisoners (after carrying out a horrific mission for them), he begins to gain confidence and educate himself.

The film is a staggering look at how horribly corrupt the prison system is (at least in France), but more than that, it's a fantastic life's journey. You can't help but be impressed by the way Malik comes into his own, and it breaks your heart to think that if he'd been able to apply himself before he was sent to prison, he might have led a happy and productive life. He begins to run side businesses that bring him a great deal of money and power, and soon he begins to get day passes (7am to 7pm), which he uses to start up even more illegal trades.

The film is directed and co-written by Jacques Audiard, who helmed READ MY LIPS and THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED--two emotionally rich and outstanding works. But A Prophet has an extra level of greatness to it by not only showing up how a boy becomes a man behind bars, but also how a person goes from being victim to become the man in charge. Malik goes from threatened to threatening in a gradual but profound, even disturbing way. I like how he plays up his Corsican connects when it suits him, but falls in line with his Muslim brethren when a favor is needed. He learns the fine art of playing one group off another; he's quite the politician. The film alternates between fascinating, stark, brutal, and heart breaking, sometimes all within the space of a single sequence. In fact, A PROPHET is one of the single greatest prison-life stories. It simply and memorably tracks the slow and steady progression one young man takes down his own path to hell, and it's a journey you will not easily forget. See this Oscar-worthy film as soon as humanly possible.


TERRIBLY HAPPY
This wonderful little number from Denmark covers some familiar territory but with some great twists. TERRIBLY HAPPY takes the basic plot of HOT FUZZ (which isn't a wholly original story idea, but I'm trying to leave bread crumbs that take you somewhere familiar) and filters it through the eyes and sensibilities of early Coen Brothers works like BLOOD SIMPLE. The film centers on a Danish police officer who is sent to a remote country town after he's had a mental breakdown involving his wife. The thinking is that if he can keep the peace in a place that almost never has crime, he can eventually get his head on straight and come back to Copenhagen.

But not long after his arrival, a few things become clear. The bogs that surround (and sometimes creep into, especially after a hard rain) the town are hiding all sorts of treasures, and the only reason that crimes aren't reported more in the town is because folks seem to like to take care of their own business and not let outsiders poke their noses around. Officer Robert Hanson (Jakob Cedergren) doesn't try hard to hide his disdain for this podunk community, but when a local woman (Lene Maria Christensen) claiming to be abused by her husband (Kim Bodnia) arrives at his door, his life becomes a lot more complicated. Much like BLOOD SIMPLE, director Henrik Ruben Genz's TERRIBLY HAPPY turns into a new noir offering without you even realizing it. Is this local woman telling the truth about her husband, or is she a femme fatale desperate to leave this small-minded town with the only other person around who seem to share her feelings about the place?

The added dimension to the movie is that while this backwards town would be enough to cause paranoia and nightmares in even the most sane person, Robert is not that person. He's already halfway to Crazytown when the movie opens, as he obsesses over not having seen his wife and young daughter in months. The town seems to be encouraging his dark thoughts, as well as adding a few new ones to the roster. This is a place with no secrets (medical records might as well be put out in the public library), yet everyone seems to be keeping several at any given time. And this is the kind of story that I thought, while being incredibly enjoyable to watch, would be wholly predictable as well. Boy, was I wrong about that. And the final scene, occurring just as you think the film's surprises have run out, offers one last opportunity to yank the rug out from under you and leave you with an eerie feeling in your soul. I'm a sucker for Danish films any day of the week, but TERRIBLY HAPPY is one of the best I've seen in quite some time, with some of the best oddball performances in recent memory. There are nice touches of humor, suspense, and straight-up drama, with a dash of the grotesque for good measure. Oh, you'll enjoy this one a whole lot.

-- Capone
therealcapone@aintitcoolmail.com
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