Movies - La Haine

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	Movies - La Haine

La Haine ("Hate") is a French black-and-white film directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, released in 1995. It is a dark urban thriller which has been called France's answer to Do the Right Thing
. It explores themes of racism, violence and disaffected youth in modern suburban Paris. A riot has broken out in a suburban ghetto, and been quelled by the police. The film depicts 24 hours in the lives of three teenage friends in that suburb.

Plot and characters

Vinz, (Vincent Cassel) who is Jewish, is filled with rage. He sees himself as a thug, modeled after Robert DeNiro's "Travis Bickle" from Taxi Driver. Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui), an Arab, is the trio's constantly-talking voice of reason. Hubert (Hubert Koundé), who is black, is a boxer, quietly pouring his energy into making something of himself and getting out of the ghetto. A friend of theirs, who has been beaten up in police custody, lies in a coma. Vinz finds a policeman's gun, lost in the riots in their suburb that preface the film, and vows that if their friend dies from his injuries, he will kill a policeman. This sets off a series of events that take the three down a path of destruction. Travelling in to central Paris from the suburbs where they live, the three friends find themselves viewed as social outsiders, and having missed the last train back out to the projects, they are effectively locked out, in the city. Trying, unsuccessfully, to return to their home, they are obliged to sleep in a shopping center. In the morning, they learn that their friend has died in hospital. For a moment it seems as if Vinz will go through with his boast, but the situation is defused. At the last, returning to their homes, it seems as if all is well, until Vinz is picked up and shot by the same racist police officer he met in the preface, precipitating a last minute confrontation that ends in death and disaster for the trio.

Impact of the film

Director Mathieu Kassovitz delivers a powerfully emotional comment on the state of French society and the problems caused by urban deprivation and its underlying causes (mainly, racism of the French police). "La Haine" features sterling perfomances by all three main actors, especially Cassel whose portrayal of Vinz launched him to stardom.

The film was a huge commercial success and provoked much debate in France over its unflinching presentation of urban and police violence. The then-prime minister Alain Juppé was reported to have arranged a special screening and ordered his entire cabinet to watch the film; police guards at the screening are said to have turned their backs on the film in protest of its portrayal of police brutality. Kassovitz won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996 and the movie was nominated for the Palme d'Or; the film also picked up the César Award for Best Picture.

The British band Asian Dub Foundation recorded a track called "La Haine" as a tribute to the film.

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