I know, I know … quelle surprise. One week after taking the BAFTA, Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet” obliterated the competition at its home awards ceremony, the Césars. The foreign-language Oscar nominee took a massive nine awards, including honors for Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Supporting Actor.
Tahar Rahim was a double winner, in fact, adding a breakthrough award to his Best Actor win. (Well, obviously.) Benefitting from the fact that “A Prophet” had no lead actress was veteran star Isabelle Adjani. It’s nice to see a documentary win for the excellent “Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno,” but a Best Foreign Film win for “Gran Torino” is really pushing the Gallic adoration for Clint Eastwood a bit far.
“A Prophet,” of course, opened Stateside yesterday — if you haven’t seen it yet, rectify that. Read our interview with Audiard here. Full list of winners after the cut.