Themes: Inner City Blues, Social Injustice, Fighting the System
Main Cast: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde, Saïd Taghmaoui, Francois Levantal, Edouard Montoute
Release Year: 1995
Country: FR
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
While to most outsiders Paris seems the very picture of beauty and civility, France has had a long and unfortunate history of intolerance toward outsiders, and this powerful drama from filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz takes an unblinking look at a racially diverse group of young people trapped in the Parisian economic and social underclass. Vinz (Vincent Cassel), who is Jewish, Hubert (Hubert Kounde), who is Black, and Said (Said Taghmaoui), who is Arabic, are young men from the lower rungs of the French economic ladder; they have no jobs, few prospects, and no productive way to spend their time. They hang out and wander the streets as a way of filling their days and are sometimes caught up in frequent skirmishes between the police and other disaffected youth. One day, a street riot breaks out after police seriously injure an Arab student; the three friends are arrested and questioned, and it is learned that a policeman lost a gun in the chaos. However, what they don't know is that Vinz picked it up and has it in his possession, and when Vinz, Hubert, and Said get into a scuffle with a group of racist skinheads, the circumstances seem poised for tragedy. Actress Jodie Foster was so impressed with La Haine when she saw it at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival that she helped to arrange American distribution for the film through her production company, Egg Pictures. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Appropriately filmed in stark black-and-white, La haine takes us to a Paris that cannot be found on a postcard or in a glossy travel brochure. The Eiffel Tower makes only one appearance, as a distant reminder of a society that has no place for the film's alienated protagonists. When it premiered in 1995 at the Cannes Film Festival, this work of 28-year-old Mathieu Kassovitz, who had previously directed Cafe au lait, arrived with the subtlety and impact of a kick to the head. Inspired by such American urban classics as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and Do the Right Thing, La haine nevertheless emerged as a work of distinct originality, appropriating its influences to tell a story at once specific and universal. The story's racial and socio-economic tensions are exposed with an unapologetic, in-your-face brutality devoid of the romanticism that often plagues films about life in the "hood;" Kassovitz is more interested in uncovering his protagonists' frailties than idealizing them. Their anger is justified and treated with sympathy, but they are held responsible for their reactions to it. The tragedy that concludes the film does not allow anyone to escape unscathed, a jarring reminder that, as long as racism and other forms of social repression are permitted to exist, we are all both its perpetrators and its ultimate victims. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
La Haine (French pronunciation: [la ɛːn] "hatred") is a Frenchblack-and-white film written, co-edited, and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, released in 1995. It is released under its French title in the English-speaking world, although its American VHS release was entitled Hate. It is about three teenage friends and their struggle to live in the banlieues of Paris. The title derives from a line spoken by one of them, Hubert: "La haine attire la haine!", "hatred breeds hatred."
The film focuses on a single day in the lives of three young friends in an impoverished multi-ethnic housing project (a ZUP - zone à urbaniser en priorité) in the aftermath of a riot. Vinz (Vincent Cassel), who is Jewish, is filled with rage. He sees himself as a gangster ready to win respect by killing a cop, and models himself after Travis Bickle from the film Taxi Driver. Saïd - Sayid in some English subtitles - (Saïd Taghmaoui) is a happy and talkative Maghrebin who tries to find middle ground between his two friends' response to life. Hubert (Hubert Koundé) is an Afro-French boxer and drug dealer. The quietest of the three, he sadly contemplates the ghetto and the hate around him. He is probably the only one who has a minimum of consciousness about the state of things. He wants to simply leave this decadent world of violence and hate behind him but does not know how since he lacks the means to do so.
A friend of theirs, Abdel Ichaha, has been brutalized by the police shortly before the riot and lies in a coma. Vinz finds a policeman's revolver, lost in the riot. He vows that if their friend dies from his injuries, he will use it to kill a cop.
The three go through their routines and struggle to entertain themselves, frequently finding themselves under police scrutiny. They take a train to Paris but encounter many of the same frustrations - as well as a group of skinheads looking to fight. Vinz's gun allows him to break up the fight and briefly bludgeon a skinhead (portrayed by Kassovitz himself).
After being forced to spend the night in a train station, the trio returns to its banlieue, and Vinz gives the gun to Hubert. Once again they encounter the police, who are eager to brutalize them in response to a previous confrontation. As one of the policemen holds Vinz against his vehicle and taunts him, his gun accidentally goes off, killing Vinz instantly. Hubert and the policeman each point their guns at each other, and as the film fades to black, one fires.
Kassovitz has said that the idea came to him when a young Zairian, Makome M'Bowole (sometimes also named as Makomé Bowole), was shot in 1993. He was killed at point blank range while in police custody and handcuffed to a radiator. The officer was reported to have been angered by Makomé's words, and had been threatening him when the gun went off accidentally.[1]
The German version of the movie's opening lines ("Dies ist die Geschichte von einem Mann der aus der aus dem 50. Stock von einem Hochhaus fällt.", in the English version "Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? ...") became an iconic sample in Gabba Front Berlin's speedcore anthem Lacrima Mosa Est.
Video releases
La Haine was available on VHS in the United States, but was not released on DVD until the Criterion Collection released a 2-disc edition in 2007. The film has been shown on many Charter Communications Channels. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray versions have also been released in Europe.
