As for Kassovitz’s later work, Assassin(s) (1997) sank without trace. Kassovitz pays his respects to Scorsese early on, when Vinz quotes a certain famous monologue from Taxi Driver.
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The obvious predecessor is Do the Right Thing but there’s more than a little of Mean Streets in this film’s DNA. Angry, committed, state-of-the-Zeitgeist films burning with an urgency to speak about something vital don’t come along that often. Kassovitz’s subsequent films have never had the impact of La Haine and it’s questionable if they ever will. That’s not to say that Pierre Aïm’s photography doesn’t have a beauty of its own – look at Hubert’s opening scene in a boxing ring, his torso gleaming with sweat, an image worthy of Bruce Weber. It gives the film a sharp, hard edge and avoids the trap of prettifying the subject matter, which could have happened were the film shown in colour. The use of black and white (actually 35mm colour negative printed on a high-contrast monochrome film stock normally used for soundtracks) works perfectly. But Kassovitz’s camerawork is never random – it’s always in just the right place. The prevailing visual cliché for “gritty social realist” would have been grainy, hand-held visuals – nowadays, grungy hand-held digital video.
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This was Mathieu Kassovitz’s second feature film (I haven’t seen his first, Métisse, also known as Café au Lait) and it’s noticeable how much in command of his medium he is, and how confident in his use of the camera. Watched again on DVD and now on Blu-ray, La Haine has lost none of its power. I still remember my first viewing, at a press screening in mid 1995 in London: I walked around in a daze for the rest of the evening. When it finally erupts, it’s genuinely shocking, with an ending that carries a massive jolt even if you’re expecting it. While it’s frequently very funny, there’s something much darker below the surface. There’s not much actual on-screen violence, but it’s saturated by the threat of it. Saïd is somewhere in between: disrespectful but watching hopelessly as events around him spiral out of control. Vinz operates on a hair-trigger, his violent temper frequently landing him in trouble. The film has little plot as such: most of the time, we get to know our three central characters. La Haine takes place in less than twenty-four hours, during which the three take a trip to the city centre and miss the train home.
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When real riots broke out in France, ten years after this film was made, it seemed uncannily prescient. It’s not the fall that kills but the landing. The central image of the film is of a man falling from a high building and saying “Okay so far” because he has yet to hit the ground. Every so often director Kassovitz cuts to a time caption. La Haine (Hate) may seem schematic at first in having its three lead characters from three different ethnic groups, but it’s quite clear that they are equally “other”, especially to the white skinheads they meet more than once. Instead of well-heeled middle-classness (with more than a hint of complacency) you have the areas where society fractures – the sink estates populated by the underclass, the areas where you don’t go out alone after dark, and where you have no business going to as a visitor. As an Arab boy lies in a critical condition, the atmosphere is tense for friends Vinz (Vincent Cassel), a white Jew, Hubert (Hubert Koundé) who is Black, and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui), who is of Arab descent.Īs Keith Reader points out in an essay originally from Sight & Sound in 1995 and which is reprinted in this edition’s booklet, to the French “banlieue” carries quite a different connotation to that which “suburbia” would have to the English.
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In a suburb of Paris, it’s the day after a riot. Hardly dated at all, La Haine gets a twenty-fifth anniversary Blu-ray edition from the BFI.