It is a cliché by now that prison life is a mirror image of life on the outside. Everything is reversed. What is condemned in "normal" society--duplicity, violence, theft--is essential, even rewarded in a prison setting.
This is a sort of perverse Horatio Alger story. A boy, innocent if any crime, starts out as a nobody, a friendless target for assaults by everyone, and within a few years rises to gang boss, powerful, feared and respected within--and outside-- the walls of the prison.
Of course, several of the incidents along the way require a large suspension of disbelief. Even in France, the penal system could not be SO corrupt or indifferent that sentenced inmates could be directly involved in drug trafficking and murder while on temporary release, or that a witness in a major rackets case would spend even a few days in the general prison population.
Despite these weaknesses, the physical atmosphere of a large penal institution is recreated with often sickening realism. The constant shouting and clanging, the grime and squalor of men forced to close and unpleasant contact.
Another cliché borne out here is that it is the inmates who actually run the prison while the authorities stand back and interfere as little as possible. Though to be fair, the film does portray efforts to rehabilitate the prisoners and prepare them for life after completion of sentence. There are literacy classes and a sort of high school for those who never went--such as the protagonist.
Even if one understands French, much of the dialog will be utterly incomprehensible to one who has not recently lived in France--or better yet in one of the immigrant suburbs or **cites** (housing projects) which exploded in riots three years ago. Additionally, a number of the inmates lapse into **Corsu**, a sort of bastard Italian and the secret language of the Corsican mafia. There is also some North African Arabic spoken in the film.
Acting, directing and, again, the sets and photography are on a high level. The director has a taste for contemporary American music, like rap and country, which pop up in the original as a counterpoint to the action.
This is a sort of perverse Horatio Alger story. A boy, innocent if any crime, starts out as a nobody, a friendless target for assaults by everyone, and within a few years rises to gang boss, powerful, feared and respected within--and outside-- the walls of the prison.
Of course, several of the incidents along the way require a large suspension of disbelief. Even in France, the penal system could not be SO corrupt or indifferent that sentenced inmates could be directly involved in drug trafficking and murder while on temporary release, or that a witness in a major rackets case would spend even a few days in the general prison population.
Despite these weaknesses, the physical atmosphere of a large penal institution is recreated with often sickening realism. The constant shouting and clanging, the grime and squalor of men forced to close and unpleasant contact.
Another cliché borne out here is that it is the inmates who actually run the prison while the authorities stand back and interfere as little as possible. Though to be fair, the film does portray efforts to rehabilitate the prisoners and prepare them for life after completion of sentence. There are literacy classes and a sort of high school for those who never went--such as the protagonist.
Even if one understands French, much of the dialog will be utterly incomprehensible to one who has not recently lived in France--or better yet in one of the immigrant suburbs or **cites** (housing projects) which exploded in riots three years ago. Additionally, a number of the inmates lapse into **Corsu**, a sort of bastard Italian and the secret language of the Corsican mafia. There is also some North African Arabic spoken in the film.
Acting, directing and, again, the sets and photography are on a high level. The director has a taste for contemporary American music, like rap and country, which pop up in the original as a counterpoint to the action.