Latest screening: A Prophet (Un Prophete)

It seems to me that Jacques Audiard just gets better and better as a filmmaker and his latest film A Prophet (Un Prophete) is an assured, powerful work that resonates with you well after you finish watching it.

It the distributor gets their act together on screeners for this one A Prophet could be one of those films that breaks out of the limiting ‘Best Film Not in the English Language’ category at the BAFTA Film Awards and easily find itself with thoroughly deserved best actor and supporting actor nominations.

Tahar Rahim is superb as the lead, a character so real it’s like watching a nature documentary, you want to get in there and help him. Set in a prison this is no Shawshank Redemption although it is curiously uplifting in a strange way! Rahim takes his character from outcast, frightened newbie; to put upon weakling, subservient dogsbody; to crafty go-getter; to self-assured player – and all completely naturally. It is as impressive a performance as I’ve seen this year and deserves to stand along side the more typical English-language performances come awards time. At BAFTA at least he should have a shot.

Niels Arestrup, familiar to Audiard fans as the father in the BAFTA winning The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrete), is almost as impressive as the prison heavy, who rules by respect, control and fear, and when called for, violence. Arestrup is the Paul Sorvino Goodfellas character, the gang leader who seems in control and all powerful but deep down is as insecure as everyone else – well aware that not only is he a target for enemies but for ambitious underlings, and that his power is only as strong as his ties to those he controls. Arestrup says so much with just a look here.

A Prophet is Audiard’s best work to date and certainly among the best foreign language films this year, and arguably the best films full stop. The story may not be the most original, often going in directions you imagine it will, but it always feels right, organic, that it should. The prison setting is a familiar one for film goers but it is rarely handled in such a natural way, superbly balancing a sense of honesty, of how such a life would really be, with genuine, driving drama. True life prison story can often be honest but inert. Fiction can be dramatic, uplifting, moving but seldom feels realistic. A Prophet manages in large part to do both.

A truly impressive film.

Along with the Mesrine movies the French have set a high bar this year.

Latest screening: The Class (Entre Les Murs)

The Class, or Between the Walls to take the literal translation from the original French title is a wonderful "slice-of-life" film, almost documentary in feel, as the French do so well.

I saw Larent Cantet's Palme d'Or winner and Oscar-nominee this week and found it was a wonderfully nuanced and engaging film.

This film is certainly not for everybody. I have seen the criticism levelled at it that little happens of major consequence, that it doesn't have a defined structure of acts. Some people need that and that's fine, but i say why does something significant need to happen to have compelling cinema. A documentary like Of Time And The City can be beautiful, lyrical, engaging and enjoyable without ever presenting a sensationalist idea or event. European cinema, especially French and Italian I find, can frequently display truths in a compelling way and shame the easy spectacle of American and British cinema. Now I love US and UK films too, i embrace all cinema, but i don't see why a film need have a Plot (yes, with a capital P)

The Class may not be for everyone but there is a very definite place, i would say a need, for its type of cinema in the world and this example, much like Walter Salles' recent Linha De Passe or perhaps best of all Fernando Meirelles' masterpiece City Of God, is a deservedly acclaimed piece.

The film's portrayal of the harried relationship between a well-meaning but increasingly frustrated teacher and his teenage students of varying degrees of rebellion, both forced and natural (in and of themselves not the film) comes to a wonderful peak when the teacher loses his cool and inadvertently insults some female students. That the actor playing the role is the teacher who wrote the book on which his own screenplay is based allows him to so accurately portray the thoughts pinwheeling around his head without saying much in this scene. He was in a heated exchange and like anyone pushed to the limits of tolerance he mistakenly said something in frustration that he should not of said. Like we all do in such circumstances he then instantly regrets it, partly for offense he doesn't want to give - he really just wants to be liked by the students, which is why he is so pained by punishments etc that some of the other teachers, more happy to be the stereotype bastard teachers the kids see all authority figures as - and partly because he does not want to get in trouble for losing control of himself. He naturally then starts playing it down, feigning shock at their reaction; trying to talk it away by saying the insult means something else to him, etc. It doesn't of course and he is not surprised by their reactions, you can see all this in the performance, in his face and body-language.

I think this subtlety is the art of great acting. I never understand how consistently beuatiful, nuanced, realistic characters get overlooked contantly at the Oscars while bombastic Acting (yes, with a capital A) so frequently wins. It is why Sean Penn won for Mystic River and not for his sublime performance in Dead Man Walking - which he lost to the more showy and less subtle Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. Penn's win beat the heartbreaking performance of Bill Murray. It is why Pacino laughingly won for his ludicrous part in Scent of a Woman but was overlooked in first two Godfathers and was not even on the radar with balanced stunning parts in films like Insomnia. Going back to Mystic River i always thought it so shameful Kevin Bacon was ignored. His pained performance was every bit the match of Penn's histrionics and Robbins sublime, but showier, role but his character was too real for people to see the genius. It is the same reason costume dramas always get into Costume Design categories and summer tentpoles always dominate SFX - the unsubtle and noticeable catches attention despite the fact it is the seemlessly complimentary which is arguably better.

For critics that say The Class doesn't go anywhere - I say, why need it? It is a slice of life, a snapshot of the frustrations and difficulties on both sides of the teacher/student dynamic. Could any adult watch the film's first half without marvelling at how such teachers constrain themselves when dealing with adolescents? And yet how many of those would then condemn the teacher for his latter actions out of hand and call for his resignation were they not seeing the full circumstances but were, say, reading only the portrayed student view in a newspaper. How many times have we all read of teachers doing something in a newspaper and thought the worst of them when we don't get the full picture, indeed, how often do we do this with all issues?

Ultimately The Class is an example of that type of life-peak cinema that the French do better than anyone, taking you into a world you don't know, no matter what your preconceptions. It still shouldn't beat Waltz With Bashir on Sunday for the Best Foreign Language award, which was the best film of the year in my opinion, but it is an excellent film worthy of attention.

Latest screenings: Waltz With Bashir, The Wave (Die Welle)

Waltz With Bashir surprised me. I had heard it was good, but i thought it would be one of those films i would admire, like Persepolis, than really like. It would be different. An interesting alternative to shake up the Best Animated Feature or Best Foreign Language Film categories. I never expected to find one of the best films of the year!

Thought provoking, funny, shocking, entertaining, disturbing, beautiful. Waltz With Bashir is so many things, what it isn't is over-rated. This is simply a must-see. I would vote for this as Best Foreign Language and Best Animation, and the way things are going it may well be in my Best Feature and Best Director lists - certainly will be for the long-list first vote.

Awards chances: This will 100% feature in the Animation nominations (see above). For BAFTA i think it also has a fantastic shot at a foreign language nomination. It deserves so much more. Quite simply: Brilliant!

The Wave (Die Welle) - Talking of thought-provoking, Monday night i saw an excellent German film called The Wave that i was recommended. Momentum has it in the UK so hopefully they'll send it out, and if they do i encourage all to watch it. It has moments bordering on melodramatic but on the whole is a very well made and handled film about a teacher trying to really get through to his students on a controversial topic - the film asks, does he prove his point or go too far. Watching it you know exactly how the media would spin it and it will make you consider news stories in different ways, even though that is not what it is about.

Awards chances: For BAFTA it may have a shot in foreign language if it gets sent out because it is a very good film that strikes a chord.