Even though they are ostensibly French, they have no connection to the world outside their small community. The alienation these kids feel is clearly illustrated, highlighting one of the reasons why they have such an embittered response to the police. It has ugly, real-life consequences and the film explores its social roots with a clear and sure focus on what causes that violence. To his credit, Kassovitz (who later starred in Amelie) treats violence as anything but cheap sensationalism. This trio’s idea of cool is distinctly Americanized, from the WWF posters stuck on their bedroom walls to the old-school hip hop they listen to and the American movies they constantly quote. La Haine demonstrates how much he learned from studying their style and storytelling methods. In the commentary, Kassovitz explains how he cut his teeth on American directors like Spielberg, Spike Lee, and especially Martin Scorsese. Hotheaded Vinz loudly swears revenge, insisting that he won’t be next. Each of them responds to the social chaos and anger in very different ways Said and Hubert are certainly upset yet generally keep it \ together. There is a North African kid named Hubert (Hubert Koundé), an Arabic kid named Saïd Saïd (Taghmaoui), and a Jewish kid named Vinz, played by the ebullient Vincent Cassel in his breakout role. A young Arabic friend of theirs was put in a coma by a policeman following a clash with the cops. Instead, it clearly and sympathetically examines the complex human responses to the tragedy by following three young men as they respond to the violence inflicted on their community. It doesn’t just shake its fist at the powers that be. Yet that egalitarian ideal ends up glossing over the alienation and condescension of those who feel they have no entry point into the larger society and are often harassed by police and lack prospects for the future.įor all its righteous anger at these social injustices, La Haine is a deeply humanistic film. As some sociologists have explained, the social and cultural distance between ostensibly French people with very different backgrounds is ironic, since the official state policy is to declare that everyone living in the country should be considered French, wherever they happen to be from. Islamophobia is an ongoing national controversy as well, which is part of the discourse around the Charlie Hebdo attack, the debate over banning the veil, and the avant-garde novels of Michelle Houellebecq. As I write, Prime Minister Macron expressed outrage - calling it “unacceptable” and “shameful” - after a videotape was released of Paris police beating a Black man named Michel Zecler. This particular riot was in response to the official brutality routinely inflicted by the police on the multiethnic minorities who hail from the city outskirts in the area known as the banlieue.įrance has always had trouble negotiating the various ethnic and class differences that have sparked riots and demonstrations for years. Even though the footage comes from a mid-90s news report it wouldn’t be out of place in one of last summer’s protests, either in America or at various places across the world. The opening shot is of contemporary news footage of rioters pushing against the police, while Bob Marley’s ominous “ Burning and Looting” plays.
La Haine (Hatred), the brilliant 1995 film from director Mathieu Kassovitz, plunges us right into the middle of that still-relevant social tension and soberly investigates how and why it happens. Unfortunately, all that tres chic glamor sometimes overshadows the seething ethnic and economic tensions that crackle beneath the city of light. As a legendary enclave of artists, Paris rightfully boasts of a proudly sophisticated and cosmopolitan style. But, crucially, all that aesthetic rebellion must be linked with political urgency - a desire to show the unwilling public the lives of those they would otherwise refuse to acknowledge, respect, or understand. You can behold it in all those gloriously bold and vivid brushstrokes of the Romantic painters or from the multicolored gallery of Les Fauves, aka “wild beasts.”Ĭinematically, this subversive panache appears in films by Jean Vigo, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jean-Pierre Melville.
You can read it in the 15th-century murder ballads of Francois Villon or in the tainted love between the “cursed poets” Verlaine and Rimbaud. Shocking the bourgeoisie with some avant-garde aesthetic is a badge of honor. There’s a grand tradition in French art of celebrating the poetic outlaw.
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