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In spite of much controversy surrounding its release and a considerable lack of financial support, "La Haine" managed not only to attract international audiences and critical acclaim, but also set the groundwork for a new class of accessible French cinema, stirring reactions from the heart of the projects to French parliament along the way. La Haine is a film that stands out above all for its impact, originality of style and success in tackling a major social issue head-on.
La Haine tracks three unemployed young men from a deprived suburb over a period of 20 hours: Said,"le beur", the naïve Arab, Vinz, the Jew bursting with inexorable anger and Hubert, le black, the pacifier and most reliable of the three. ...
The film is based on an incident which took place in 1992 in one of the many housing estates on the outskirts of Paris when an 18-year-old black youth was shot dead during interrogation by a police officer:
"As pointed out by Elstob (1997-8), some of the demonstrators in the actual television footage used in the opening scenes of La Haine hold up placards with the words ‘Revanche pour Mako’. ...
Indeed, La Haine can be considered one of the first films to deal with the problem of French suburbs, and there are three main topics which are reoccurring throughout the film. ... The forces of order are treated as veritable fascists, the 3 protagonists run into various confrontations, Hubert and Said are arrested and tortured by the corrupt BAC (brigade anti-criminalite), and by the end of the film any faith in the honesty of the police-force and CRS is shattered:
"Most disturbing in the context of La Haine are the plainclothes police who have the power to make the youths lives miserable on a daily basis" (Stafford, 2000:68). ...
However, while Kassovitz promoted La Haine as an anti-police film in subsequent interviews, many scenes seem to reflect a different side to the coin. ... The statement here is one which encourages sympathy, if there is a large concentration of dealers in the "banlieues" its in an effort to survive, again an attack on many prejudices held by much of French society:
"None of the youths in La Haine appears to be in work(…)Petty crime and drug dealing are the only means of earning money. ...
"Although La Haine is not necessarily a film about racism, it is clearly making
visible the lives of people who have to survive in a racist society and for this
reason alone it stands as a political film" (Stafford, 2000:67). ...
La Haine therefore represented an aspect of society rarely divulged to the viewing public, and thus had both immediate and long-lasting effects on French thinking and forced the government to tackle a problem it had, until then, preferred to ignore:
"La Haine has been termed a film event in France" (Jackel, 1997, quoted by Stafford, 1999:80). ... Kassovitz himself had a lot to do with the impact of La Haine, initiating debate around the question of it being an "anti-police" film:
"Sheila Johnston reports a nice rejoinder to this statement by a police official who refers to the film as a beautiful work of cinematographic art that can make us more aware of certain realities (…) as Johnston points out it is difficult to imagine a similar comment by a British police official" (Johnston, 1995, quoted by Stafford, 2000:81).
Approximate Word count = 2671
Approximate Pages = 10.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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