Review of La Haine (1995) by Jack L — 21 Jul 2010

La Haine is one of the best French films to appear in recent years and is one of the only ones to touch upon such a subject as life in the Banlieues of Paris.

Although not the director's, Mathieu Kassovitz, first film it was the first to receive much praise and to be shown in many countries outside of France. Amongst other awards he won the best director prize at Cannesfor this film and he definitely deserved to in my opinion, such a shame he then went to Hollywood where his career went progressively downwards.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD......

The film takes place in a Banlieue which it's inhabitants simply call la Cité.

This film takes place the day after some large riots rocked the area wounding several policemen and resulting in the hospitalization of a young man named Abdel. The film revolves around a group of friends, Vinz (Vincent Cassel) is Jewish, aggressive and strongly anti-police, Hubert (Hubert Koundé) is of African origin and is the calmest, most silent and has many ideas about the current state of things, Said (Said Taghmaoui) is of Arab origin and balances the very different atitudes of his two friends very well.

The trio wander around the banlieue, which is ridden with the aftermath of the riots, with nothing to do. The are harassed by Police, mainly due to their skin color and their age. Vinz reveals to his friends that he found a handgun lost by a police officer during the confusion of the riots. he threatens to kill a Police officer if Abdel dies in hospital.

In desperate need of something to do the three take the train to Paris to see a man that owes Said some money. Their trip becomes progressively worse as they are taken in by police men for nothing and held until they miss their train, they then have to spend the night wandering around Paris where they are attacked by skin-heads, nearly caught stealing a car, thrown out of art galleries, and witnesses to a murder.

They eventually arrive home next morning with many new idea in their heads and many good resolutions, only to meet a tragic end.

...........

The direction by Kassovitz was definitely deserving of many awards, it is very original and very inventive considering the extremely tight budget it was shot on. The filming in Black and White was a great idea, I thought it added a lot of realism to the film.

Kassowitz really proved to be an excellent director, some shots are quite breathtaking (such as the the scene where the camera flies above the heads of the characters and just seems to glide) and some shots are incredibly cool such as the slow motion boxing and breakdancing.

The shifts between scenes are very well handled and even though the film often skips ahead a few hours it still remains very cohesive.

The violent scenes are few but very powerful and really effect the film, they are well filmed and succeed in capturing the horror of everyday violence without glorifying it in the slightest.

The film manages to keep the viewer interested and involved throughout even though it isn't continuous action like many films these days. The scenes of dialogue where nothing much happens (there are a lot of them) are just as entertaining as the action scenes.

The plot was very relevant to modern times and dealt with the many issues it covered very tactfully. It deals mainly with the sense of frustration of the young men growing up in these areas, two very different ways of thinking are presented in the characters of Vinz and Hubert. I thought that the film did very well in presenting other aspects of their life, they travel into the center of Paris and compare the lifestyle there to their own. Political opinions are expressed and that adds to the realism.

The characters have many strange and diverse experiences over the course of the film that really capture how France was socially at the time. The police are shown in a generally unfavourable light, even the ones trying to help are insulted, but their behaviour towards the three characters is quite shocking and I really don't think anything is exaggerated, France is well known to have a terribly brutal and racist police force.

The ending is very open-ended, the outcome of a confrontation between Hubert and a Police officer remains unknown. The ending comes as quite a shock.

The acting was great from the whole cast even though due to amount of moving around the characters do, the supporting characters often only appear once. The three main actors, Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde and Said Taghmaoui, were all outstanding and all gave very different yet equally remarkable performances.

My personal favourite was Vincent Cassel ,who also had the most challenging part as Vinz in my opinion, but he is my favourite French actor at the moment so I suppose I'm slightly biased.

The soundtrack was very good, it was pretty much entirely composed of French music which young men probably listened to at that time. It might not be to everyones taste, but it works incredibly well with the film. The opening sequence showing the riots was accompanied by a very well chosen piece by Bob Marley.

The dialogue is entirely in French and even though I had subtitles I turned them off because I found them too inaccurate in their translations, I strongly recommend you watch this in it's original language as so many things will be lost in the translation, if you don't speak French then I recommend you go and learn it if only to watch this incredible film!!

Many scenes in this film contain groups of people and when a situation arises they all start talking at once, while this can be confusing at times I thought it really added to the realistic feel of the film. The use of slang is extremely heavy in this film.

The way of filming certain scenes of dialogue was extremely original, such as having two groups of people, one in the foreground and one in the background, speaking at the same time but only hearing one group. Vinz's Taxi Driver imitation in front of the mirror is really worth seeing!

The characters were the real focus of the film, each one embodied some aspect of life in the banlieu, Vinz is violent, aggressive and hates police, yet he has no ambitions and wouldn't know what to do if suddenly given opportunities, the gradual transformation of his character is great to watch and at the end I was very sad for him because he was just taking his first steps towards entirely changing his way of thinking.

Hubert is the wise and quite one, who channels all his rage out through boxing, yet he is also the most sensitive and the most affected by his circumstances, he wants to leave and make something of his life. He doesn't believe that hatred and violence will solve the problems, on the contrary he believes that "La Haine attire la Haine" (hate breeds hate) thus giving the film it's name.

Said is in between his two extreme friends, he doesn't think to hard about anything and doesn't really hold any strong opinions, he is the comic relief, he relieves all the stress with his jokes. He seems to be able to get through any situation safely and you can be sure that he will turn out well.

I liked the fact that the characters all bore the names of the actor portraying them.

Overall this is an excellent film that as soon as I watched it went straight into the top ten of my favourite films list. This film touches on many important issues which I haven't really had time to write about here, as well as being extraordinary well filmed and containing some hilarious scenes.

Highly recommended to everyone interested in French cinema or in France in general, I do not understand why this film is often overlooked and why many critics only gave it 4/5 stars, personally I thought it was one of the best films I've seen in a while.