Review of La Haine (1995) by Alex V — 26 Nov 2008

I love the feeling I get when I watch a film and right when it ends, I ask myself: "Self, how could you have gone so long without watching this movie?" That is how much La Haine rocked my world. The story unfolds over the course of 24 hours (one of my favorite time-frames for a good movie, most of you know), following three friends growing up in a ghetto near Paris, where they deal with everyday troubles like poverty and police brutality. Each of the three characters is extraordinarily fleshed-out and multi-layered, and I firmly believe that each of them could have carried a compelling film all by themselves. Vinz, a young Jewish man, is short-tempered, loud, and romanticizes the "gangster" lifestyle and the glorification of violence (most apparent in the instances throughout the film where he mimics Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro's character in Taxi Driver). Hubert, from Africa, is much more mature and reserved, yet has an air of naivete, and works well as a balance to Vinz's outrage. Said, the Arab immigrant, is the "comic relief guy," but has much value and is very dynamic as a character, and could almost be considered the one whose POV is closest to the audience's: he is the first of the three we are introduced to, and the last character the camera fixes on before the credits roll. All three are relatively harmless street hooligans who never really did anything wrong, until Vinz stumbles upon a handgun. From there, the three spend the day wandering their ghetto, which eventually leads them into Paris, with a sort of new-found sense of power, but an inability to figure out what to do with it.

Mathieu Kassovitz is an incredible director. What he does here is absolutely astounding. He takes bits and pieces from the films and filmmakers he idolizes (Scorsese, Spike Lee, Spielberg), as well as French fimmaking sensibilities, and creates a vision that, while obviously inspired by what he picked up from, looks entirely fresh and new. This unique vision is coupled with the uncanny ability to get the best out of his actors, but Kassovitz definitely has some experience there (he has acted in large roles for Amelie and Munich, more recently). The landscape of poverty and violence-stricken France is rich and textured, and he has total control over what needs to be seen or conveyed.

Overall, this is an awe-inspiring portrait of urban decay that breaks the mold of other such movies that were popular to make at the time. It reminds me of my reaction to the most recent one I had seen before this: Menace II Society. I had problems with that one because I couldn't find much personality or likability in the main characters. They seemed too static at times, and too cartoonish in other instances. La Haine hits the mood perfectly. The humanity and gravity of the main characters is immediately compelling, and it kicks you in the pants when something tense or frantic occurs.

I could gush about what makes this movie so amazing all day, but I think I made my point. For me, it completes the "holy trinity" of urban decay movies, the other two being City Of God and Do The Right Thing. See it. Immediately.