Jacques Audiard has created a brilliant film (2009) exposing the nature of crime in French prisons. It was nominated for an Academy Award. Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is a French-Arab incarcerated for some menial crime. He falls under the influence of Corsican kingpin Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup) and must carry out the Corsican's kill order on a muslim prison inmate (snitch) to save his own skin. Corsica, Napoleon's birthplace, has been part of France since 1769 (it was briefly a sovereign island nation at the time). There is no love lost between Corsicans and mainland French, especially Muslim.
Malik secretly learns Corsican and acts as Luciani's eyes and ears in prison and conducts Luciani's business outside when furloughed. On the road in Marseille, Malik predicts a collision with a deer, which happens minutes later. Lattroche, a Muslim in Marseille, calls him a prophet and agrees to do business with him instead of Luciani.
Times reviewer Manohla Dargis notes the following. Near the end of the film, there’s a scene in which Malik, travels to Paris to kill some men. The scene reverberates with almost unbearable tension but is briefly punctured by a seemingly throwaway image: Seconds before he begins shooting, thereby sealing his fate, you see him catch sight of a pair of men’s shoes showcased like jewels in a boutique window in a rich Parisian quarter. He does a double take, a reaction that might mirror that of the anxious viewer who wonders why he doesn’t just get on with it. Much of what distinguishes the film is revealed in Malik’s brief appreciation of the shoes, as well as the surprise it elicits. He’s window shopping — doesn’t he have some killing to do? Yet these luxury items are resonant, as is their exclusive setting and the way Malik’s admiring gaze momentarily stops the flow of the action: each adds another element to this portrait of an impoverished young Frenchman of Arab descent who is transformed in prison.
