La haine

Plot synopsis:
The film depicts approximately 19 consecutive hours in the lives of three friends in their early twenties from immigrant families living in an impoverished multi-ethnic French housing project (a ZUP – zone d'urbanisation prioritaire) in the suburbs of Paris, 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, manically practising the role of Travis Bickle from the film Taxi Driver in the mirror secretly. His attitude towards police, for instance, is a simplified, stylized blanket condemnation, even to individual policemen who make an effort to steer the trio clear of troublesome situations. Hubert (Hubert Koundé) is an Afro-French boxer and small-time drug dealer, the most mature of the three, whose gymnasium was burned in the riots. The quietest, most thoughtful and wisest of the three, he sadly contemplates the ghetto and the hate around him. He expresses the wish to simply leave this world of violence and hate behind him, but does not know how since he lacks the means to do so. Saïd – Sayid in some English subtitles – (Saïd Taghmaoui) is an Arab Maghrebi who inhabits the middle ground between his two friends' responses to their place in life.
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 .44 Magnum revolver, lost in the riot. He vows that if their friend dies from his injuries, he will use it to kill a cop, and when he hears of Abdel's death he fantasizes carrying out his vengeance.
The three go through an aimless daily routine and struggle to entertain themselves, frequently finding themselves under police scrutiny. After Vinz nearly shoots a riot policeman and the group narrowly escapes, they take a train to Paris but encounter many of the same frustrations, and their responses to interactions with both benign and malicious Parisians cause several situations to degenerate to dangerous hostility. A run-in with sadistic plainclothes policemen, during which Saïd and Hubert are humiliated and racially as well as physically abused, results in their missing the last train home and spending the night on the streets. They sleep in a shopping mall and wake to a news broadcast informing them that Abdel is dead. They later travel to a roof-top from which they insult skinheads and policemen, before later encountering the same group of racist anti-immigrant skinheads who begin to beat Saïd and Hubert savagely, now that the balance of power has shifted. Vinz suddenly arrives, and his gun allows him to break up the fight; all the skinheads flee except one (portrayed by Kassovitz himself) whom Vinz is about to execute in cold blood. His dream of revenge is thwarted by his reluctance to go through with the deed, and, cleverly goaded by Hubert, he is forced to confront the fact that his true nature is not the heartless gangster he poses as, and he lets the skinhead flee.
Early in the morning, the trio returns to the banlieue and split up to their separate homes, and Vinz turns the gun over to Hubert. However, Vinz and Saïd encounter a plainclothes policeman, whom Vinz had insulted earlier in the day whilst with his friends on a local rooftop. The policeman grabs and threatens Vinz, making reference to the earlier incident on the roof. Hubert rushes to their aid, but as the policeman holding Vinz taunts him with a loaded gun held to Vinz's head, the gun accidentally goes off, killing Vinz instantly. Hubert and the policeman slowly and deliberately point their guns at each other, and as the film cuts to Saïd closing his eyes and cuts to black, a shot is heard on the soundtrack, with no indication of who fired or who may have been hit. This stand-off is underlined by a voice-over of Hubert's slightly modified opening lines ("It's about a society in free fall..."), underlining the fact that, as the lines say, jusqu'ici tout va bien (so far so good); i.e. all seems to be going relatively well until Vinz is killed, and from there no one knows what will happen, a microcosm of French society's descent through hostility into pointless violence.

Tags: bleak, revenge, cult, realism, violence

Review:
As much a realistic portrayal of a torn society as it is an artistic achievement, 'La Haine' is essential viewing.My vote: 10 out of 10Favorite films: http://www.IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/Lesser-known Masterpieces: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070242495/Favorite Low-Budget and B-movies: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls054808375/Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls075552387/.
Reminiscent of Costas-Gavras' film Z with its rapid-fire dialogue and staccato rhythms, La Haine (Hate) directed by 28 year-old Mathieu Kassovitz, is a passionate look at racial tensions at a Paris housing project.
It's rare that a film like this is considered both genuine and a good example of it's art but La Haine is both.The plotline is compelling and realistic and neatly shows the way that inner city life has gone in the big cities in France as well as proving that despite the romance of Paris, it suffers from the same problems as any other major city.The characters are above all believable and the cast did a great job.
The quality of acting is simply stunning from several actors and it would be a shame if it was simply dismissed as "just another foreign art-house movie" by audiences outside France.Above all the film whilst showing the influences of American films and society has a very clear sense of it's own identity and at no time does it feel like another US Ghetto film transposed to France.
La Haine aka Hate is a story about three friends living near Paris in France (one Jew, one Arab and one black) who have nothing special in their lives and try to live a day at a time by drinking and having a good time and also working (at least the black character, who owns a boxing hall).
This makes the youth gangs in city including the three protagonists start a war against the police and authorities for the horrible wrongs they and their friend have suffered, and suddenly they notice the whole society is collapsing, and all there is is hate and need to revenge...Violence and mayhem is almost everywhere, including authorities which should do nothing but fight against it..This film is powerful and grim.
La Haine is that kind of a film that it should be seen by police and youths as well, because there are still possibilities to prevent things to go too far in our life and world we live in.The camera techniques used in this film are magnificent.
With La Haine, young director Mathieu Kassovitz took the flipside of this and gave an illustration of the awfulness of life in the depressed blue-collar areas of ParisLa Haine (Hate') begins after a night of rioting on a dismal housing estate on the northern outskirts of Paris and focuses on 24 hours in the lives of three close friends aged around 20.
L'Avenir c'est nous (We Are the Future) is the ironic slogan on the estate's playground, but this is a film about people who believe they have no future.The quality of the performances from the 3 main actors, their conviction, the way they interact with one another and the vigour and fluency of Kassovitz's script and direction make this a very special movie indeed.
he sees the relationship between hubert and vinz, his 2 best friend, deteriorate, but doesn't know who to side with, or what to do about it.Mathieu Kassovitz made this film in a way that you feel for both the police and the the 3 friends.
The end shocked me and I couldn't really think anything else then "I got to watch this movie again", and the day after I bought a DVD of it.The movie tells the story of a black, Arab and Jewish guy who live in a housing project near Paris, the kind of neighborhood where most of the people don't have a job, where the youth bores itself and flirts with criminal behavior, where drugs are being sold and where an occasional riot starts (this happened from the 80's until recently from time to time).
With Vinz - not being the most stable nor the most smart and relaxed person - having a gun on him the three come in some hard situations, but also without the police gun they have enough problems during the 24 hours....I ain't gonna spoil anything, but this should be enough to make you wanting to watch this movie.After watching it a couple of times I realized that this was a story, I always thought it was a documentary, which is a big compliment to the whole crew I think.
The best thing is the end, which sets the movie mostly apart and makes it more recognizable for the European crowd (I'm not gonna spoil it, but if it ended differently the movie wouldn't been so great) The way it is shot in black and white makes it look realer, makes it grimier, it portrays the banlieues as a place without an exit.
But what really sets this movie apart is the Cutkiller scene, this scene only made me wanted to get a set of SL1200's...The way the tension is build in the movie is great, most of the time the characters don't do anything, but you still feel the tension building, the hate growing, and when you maybe bored watching some scenes the first time (the "candit-camera" scene for instance and the "eiffeltower" scene), but afterwards they're like pieces of a puzzle falling into it's place.
watch this movie and you'r hooked for life haha :).the ending is so powerful that you think: this movie is just to good to be true.i know my comment isn't very helpfull, but i wanted to give you all my opinion about the film..
On the end of the long night, tragedy happens.The awarded "La Haine" is an impressive French movie that follows along 24 hours, the lives of three idle friends from a poor suburb of Paris that belong to a lost generation.
I saw this movie in the 90's and today I have decided to see it again to compare the situations shown in the movie with what is recently happening in Brazil with several riots and it is amazing the similarities: lost youths with neither instruction nor job; unprepared and brutal police force; low quality of life in the slums or ghettos in the outskirts of the big cities (in Brazil, there are several slums also in the noble areas).
Black and white, one great freaking soundtrack, amazing amateur acting, a very real script, and just a blazing atmosphere set this movie apart from almost every indie film in the last 20 years.
I like the acting by Vincent Cassel and other actors, like the movie is recorded in black and white, but something is missing, there is no deepness in the movie, director didn't show the real reasons why the people are living in that hard conditions, we only see how they kill their time in the hood and some of their small committed crimes, and of course there is constant animosity between people from the hood and police, but maybe that's it, the feeling of emptiness is similar to hate.
So far so good." There must be conviction in such words and the characters in "La Haine" seem to know they're in such dire circumstances, which are presented to us as almost inescapable for them.The french film, which took home the César Award for Best Film in 1995, succeeds in its sense of realism, almost appearing as a documentary with incredibly subtle camera-work that allows us to, not so much participate in but rather, feel shameful for unobtrusively playing witness to the crimes.
The atmosphere's harsh lighting and expressionist style of cinematography bears a striking similarity to the classic noir film, "The Third Man", where the surroundings are so vibrant that they nearly become a character in itself.Director Kassovitz, in only his second feature, demonstrates a masterful understanding of space and shadows, creating feelings of distress, at times claustrophobia, and a general sense of uneasiness.
There are much better French films than this pretentious attempt.Sure lighting and black/white photography was great, direction great, actors superb but there was no really original story or insight.
The acting and direction is terrific, the story is very good (we follow the three main characters for only 24 hours) and especially the black-and-white cinematography is great.
Despite some really funny moments (a dealer named Asterix, Cassel doing a Taxi Driver impression, the Tarantinoesque discussion about Tom & Jerry), this black and white milestone of French movie industry remains a very serious, brutal, unflinching film.
The bleak ending is just the definitive proof of what the entire movie is trying to teach us: hate and violence will only cause more violence (this aspect makes La Haine quite similar to Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing).This movie should be shown to everyone, so that people can understand what doesn't work in our society.Films with a strong message keep being important even 20 years after their release.
Flawless storytelling, intense acting and mastery in directing this film by Mathieu Kassovitz is truly a modern masterpiece which value, i am sure, will grow as the years go by like a vintage wine.Unique storytelling also remembers to end the story well, this is often neglected in modern movies.
This is used to give the viewer a real understanding of why these people are constantly rioting against the police because they feel trapped in this urban jungle and that the police actually keep them down rather than help them.There is another shot where Vince and Hubert are standing on a raised level with the streets of Paris behind them.
Filmed in a stark black and white, Kassovitz takes away the glory, wealth, and American-ized culture of project life (see Baltimore's "The Wire") and allows us to experience one day in the life of these boys and their discovery of a gun.Like von Trier's "Dear Wendy", "La Haine" focuses on the gun, a rarity within the youth of the French projects, and builds this momentum that the unknown will eventually happen.
Mathieu Kassovitz's 'La Haine' is a film that deals with the major social concerns present in the French banlieues or suburbs, where social fragmentation in the society and hatred to a system that rejects the inhabitants have resulted in gangs of multi-ethnic youths.
The film acts as a way of showing the serious issues in a way that prevents the government from just ignoring that they exist, which is what they had been doing, although Kassovitz said that he wasn't making a political movie.The film follows three youths, Vinz, an explosive Jew, Hubert, a thoughtful powerful black and Said, a streetwise Arab who represent the different cultures brought together by location and class.
Then we see a policeman throw a missile at the demonstrators kicking off the violent riot, so the police are shown by Kassovitz as being the perpetrators of the violence in the film.Mathieu uses the conflict between the police and the youths of the banlieues as a pointer to people in authority across the globe, as similar problems occur in most if not all major cities in one degree or another so the film is very relevant.
I guess I won't be able to say everything that's great about this film, but surely I will try.Mathieu Kassovitz is showing us one day in the life of three violent young men.
24 hours in the lives of three young friends from the French suburbs after a violent riot the day before.Extremely advisable to all teenagers and young adults (and not only), because although the film does not have a conventional story line, being more a series of events over 24 hours, those events are things that could happen to anyone, to with which we can identify, and has a final with a deep message.It is true that the film offers no solution to the violence and problems it depicts on disadvantaged minorities and social classes, and the characters sometimes do not seem at all pleasant, but it does provide a glimpse into the human condition in how "the social environment and behavior shape matching behavior".I believe this is a movie that can touch the soul, a movie to reflect upon feelings and prejudices that have to be overcome if we are to have a more just and peaceful society.Truly recommendable watch.
Inspired by other masterpieces such as, Do the Right Thing and Mean Streets, La Haine is a French film taking influence from American, urban cinema.
Not only this, but I quickly realised I had watched one of the most poignant social-commentaries to hit modern cinema, a film which was so honest and reminiscent for today's society.Set within the space of a day, La Haine places the viewer inside the French ghettos.
I am studying this film for my exams in January, i was a little downhearted to begin with as I'm not world cinemas biggest fan, and wasn't looking forward to watching it.How mistaken could i be, this film has the gritty realism that reminds me of films like Trainspotting, with the style of guy Ritchie, but under this hides a very important statement about french life.the film follows three friends through a day, a day which started with their friend in intensive care following riots during the night, where he was beaten by the police.The start of the film was great, the shots taken seemed as if they were real footage from riots, and was accompanied by a great Bob Marley song 'Burnin and Looting' The three characters are all visually introduced then you see them cause trouble, and be obnoxious, Vincent Cassell plays the part of Vinz, a lad who had found a cops gun in the riots, and has an obsession with using it,Hubert Koundé plays Hubert, Hubert and Vinz don't see eye to eye in the film and seem to have very different outlooks on the present situation, but start to become closer as the film progresses Said Taghmaoui plays Said, not as a strong character as the other two but is very important as the film gives the impression it through his eyes, as it opens with his eyes opening and closes with, yes you guessed it, his eyes closing.I wont tell you the end, i heard an absolutely ridiculous comment about this film from a film critic who labelled the film as predictable!!
While at the same time this societal statement is made there's a real story going on about three young friends (Vincent Cassell, Hubert Kounde, Said Taghmaoui, all named with their characters), one of which carrying a gun he 'found' from one cop who lost it during a riot, and their travels and adventures over a day trying to get money, drugs, or just getting by the haze of bewilderment over their friend dying in a hospital from cops beating and Vinz's demand for revenge *if* he dies.La Haine is an impression of just a part of a city, as much as one can grab in a day's length of time in 'movie-time', but as well as comparisons to Mean Streets may lie there's also one perhaps for Do the Right Thing.
Kassovitz isn't afraid to take a current event and turn it into the stuff of rousing character-driven drama with some semblance of plot (in this case the old 'if the gun is used in act then one act five' logic), but like Lee or Scorsese his black and white cinematography that follows these guys around with the verve to keep on a tracking shot or a specific close-up (in a half-ironic close-up Cassel talks to the mirror ala Travis Bickle, a little inspired through a whole other perspective) that speaks so much.
Sometimes it's docu-realistic, but then Kassovitz will throw that stylistic curve-ball reminding us this is in-your-face and with an attitude that would make the Clash raise an eyebrow or two.And along with Kassovitz hitting it way out of the park intellectually and emotionally as a filmmaker, his actors are all lock-in-step wonderful for their characters: Taghmaoui, who you might remember from Three Kings or Traitor, as the uppity and bad-joke telling Arab who has attitude to spare but is like a rough puppy at best; Kounde as the one with probably the most common sense as a guy who lost his gym to the riot and gets by smoking hash and trying to get (or talk) Cassel out of trouble; Cassel as the hot-head with something to prove to himself, or so he thinks, carrying the gun and not really knowing its implications.
The current President of France considers the minorities in France to be "scum." This is the story of three of these minority youth and 24 hours in their life after another was murdered by a French policeman.Mathieu Kassovitz (Crimson Rivers, Gothika) has directed a masterpiece showing the youth that are alienated from their parents with their love of rap music and American films, and a culture that is alienated from those in society that are consumed with their incomes, and cars, and fancy houses.The film stars three fantastic actors: Vincent Cassel (Ocean's Twelve & Thirteen, Crimson Rivers, Brotherhood of the Wolf), Hubert Koundé (The Constant Gardener), and Saïd Taghmaoui (The Kite Runner, Hildago).
"This is the story about a guy who falls off the top of a 50 storey building(or the Eiffel Tower)," recounts one of the film's heros."As he is falling, he is telling himself,'So far, everything is fine....so far, everything is fine' But in the end he has to land." Kassovitz tells the story of that descent through 24 hours in the lives of three friends, a symbolic trio of Black, Arab and Jew. Hubert, Said and Vinz are homeboys for whom home is one of the countless suberbs outside Paris, The housing estates, shoe boxes or pigeon holes if you ask me.
La Haine, like all great films should be, is a work of art, written and directed by a man who'd decided that he wants to make every shot as good as it can be.