Part Of The Picture: Sounding off about Sight

Picture courtesy: screendaily.com

SOUNDING OFF ABOUT SIGHT

FEB 20, 2010 – WHEN THE TITLES FLASH ACROSS THE OPENING FRAMES of this presently Oscar-nominated foreign film, the text flickers in small fissures upon a dark screen, as if alphabets in white were bubbling up from underneath a sea of black. The effect is that of an iris-out (or an iris-in), a mask closing down on (or opening up from) the names of cast and crew. We think, at first, that this is just a style element – perhaps reflective of the gloomy insides of the prison where this drama unfurls, or perhaps indicative of fleeting glimmers of hope in the midst of all the bleakness. The possibilities for imaginative extrapolation, based on this title sequence, are endless. We have yet to step into the story of Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), who’s incarcerated for six years for an unspecified crime that resulted in injuries to a policeman, and who, subsequently, rises from errand boy of a Corsican criminal fraternity – headed by César Luciani (Niels Arestrup) – to cunning wheeler-dealer with his own network of nefarious operations.

But once the title sequence ends, we note the same technique being applied to the first scene, where Malik is hauled off to prison… And yet again, when Malik, who’s illiterate and who learns to read in prison, pores over an elementary alphabet book… And yet again, when Malik, in a hallucinatory dream, wrestles with the spirit of a man he’s murdered. This excessively showy effect appears at odds with the life-sized verité feel of the rest of the narrative – so why is it employed ever so often? Is there a purpose? Or is it simply one of those gold-plated carrots that art-film directors like to dangle in front of excessively committed audiences in order to sit back and laugh about the various “meanings” that will be unearthed, much like how The Beatles wrote in the willful obfuscations of Glass Onion so their worshipful listeners could engage in connect-the-dots-that-aren’t-really-dots guessing games.

Since we’ll never really know, here’s a shot at interpreting this mysterious effect. After Malik starts out on his own, he finishes a bit of business and is on his way back, when he passes César, sitting alone in his cell. Something – force of habit, perhaps, from the errand-boy days of asking César whether coffee needed to be made, or if more bread was required – makes Malik knock. César looks back, and asks, “Where were you?” Malik replies that he was at the registrar’s office. César asks if it went well, and if Malik has eaten. Malik replies that he’s in a rush, that he has to see a guy, but César insists, “He’ll wait. Come and have a coffee.” This could be the older man’s way of showing the upstart Malik that he’s still boss. Malik walks in and seats himself, as César begins, “I want to talk to you. I’ve seen you with that tall guy, the Gypsy, in the yard. What’s your thing? Hashish? Pills?” Malik says it’s hash, and smirks, “You want your share?” But that’s not it. César laughs, “It’s your business. It concerns you.”

But there is something that concerns César, and that’s the possibility that Malik’s activities, if discovered, could end his trips to the outside world, during which he carries out tasks for César – and that César cannot have. He takes his spoon out of the coffee cup, licks it clean, and without warning, he stabs Malik’s eye. “What did I tell you last time?” he barks. “I said to watch your step. Don’t risk your leave. You’re of use if you go on leave, Djebena. If you don’t, then what good are you?” César yanks the spoon from Malik’s eye, shoves the screaming man towards the door and asks him to get lost. The next time they meet – after a night Malik has spent huddled in agony over his wounded eye – we see César the way Malik sees him, a flickering iris-out vision in the centre of a screen that is otherwise black.

“No longer scared of me?” César snarls. “If you can walk around this place, it’s because I had made you porter. If you eat, it’s thanks to me. If you dream, think, live, it’s thanks to me… Dumb shit! The name Luciani is branded on your face. You live off me, Djebena.” The vision of César becomes a blinding white, as if Malik’s is truly in pain. César continues, “People look at you and see me. Otherwise what would they see?” The scene ends, the screen fades to black, the next scene begins to play out with that by-now familiar visual effect – and it does seem that, finally, it means something. The effect, all along, has been foreshadowing this moment where Malik begins to live with a damaged eye. And if you’re wondering what foreshadowing has to do with anything, you just have to look back at the film’s title. Malik, thereon, evolves into a vague prophet, a seer afflicted with visions of events before they happen – and the first thing he sees, apparently, is that he’ll never see the same way again.

Un Prophète (2009, French, Arabic, Corsican; aka A Prophet). Directed by Jacques Audiard. Starring Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif.

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Posted in: Cinema: Foreign