Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
Prison movies are a rough bunch. "It's not as bleak as I expected; no-one gets raped."
Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) goes to prison, an illiterate French youth of indeterminate ethnicity -- the Corsicans who run the place like old-school mafiosi call him "Arab"; the growing muslim population in the opposite cell block take him for Corsican. He gradually builds influence within and without the prison, first as unwilling slave to Luciani (Niels Arestrup), leader of the Corsicans, and later as a bridge between factions.
It's a story of a corrupting rise to power, troublingly linked to systemic corruption within the prison; power here corrupts not only its holders, but also those subject to its capricious whim.