La Haine
Encyclopedia
La Haine is a 1995 French black-and-white
film written, co-edited, and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
. It is commonly 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 banlieue
s of Paris. The title derives from a line spoken by one of them, Hubert: "La haine attire la haine!", "hatred breeds hatred."
), who is Jewish, is filled with rage. He sees himself as a gangster ready to win respect by killing a cop, and practices the role of Travis Bickle from the film Taxi Driver
in the mirror. 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, 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 decadent 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 a Maghrebin
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. They take a train to Paris but encounter many of the same frustrations, and their responses to benign interactions with Parisians cause the situations to degenerate to gratuitous hostility. A run-in with sadistic Parisian plainclothes police, during which Saïd and Hubert are humiliated and physically abused, results in their missing the last train home and spending the night on the streets. They encounter a group of racist anti-immigrant skinheads who begin to beat Saïd and Hubert savagely, but Vinz's gun allows him to break up the fight and all the skinheads flee except one (portrayed by Kassovitz himself) who 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 return to the banlieue
and split up to their separate homes, and Vinz, in a wise decision, turns the gun over to Hubert, relinquishing his destructive self-image and potentially opening the door to personal growth and a constructive future. 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. However, it can be noted that throughout the film, the gun in Vinz's possession is gradually unloaded through various non fatal firings and/or games of russian roulette (their "friend" Asterix had removed the bullets in the gun as a trick during the game and never replaced them), therefore making the gun unloaded when Vinz threatened to kill the skin head and when Hubert aimed it at the police officer (leading to speculation that Hubert was also killed at the end because his gun had no bullets and was a mere visual/psychological danger). 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.
, 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. Mathieu Kassovitz included his own experiences; he took part in riots, he acts in a number of scenes and includes his father Peter in another.
The majority of the filming was done in the Parisian suburb of Chanteloup-les-Vignes
. Real footage was used for this film, taken from 1986–96; riots still took place during the time of filming. Some of the actors were not professional. Money was an issue in producing the film. Kassovitz used simple special effects, filmed in black and white and used a handheld camera due to not having a big budget.
The film is dedicated to those who died while it was being made ("Ce film est dédié à ceux disparus pendant sa fabrication...")
, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 100%, with an average score of 8/10. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times
called the film "raw, vital and captivating". Wendy Ide of The Times
stated that La Haine is "One of the most blisteringly effective pieces of urban cinema ever made."
It was ranked #32 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
Channels. Both HD DVD
and Blu-ray
versions have also been released in Europe.
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
film written, co-edited, and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
Mathieu Kassovitz
Mathieu Kassovitz is a French director, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for his Cannes-winning drama La Haine. Kassovitz is also the founder of MNP Entreprise, a film production company....
. It is commonly released under its French title in the English-speaking world
English-speaking world
The English-speaking world consists of those countries or regions that use the English language to one degree or another. For more information, please see:Lists:* List of countries by English-speaking population...
, although its American VHS release was entitled Hate. It is about three teenage friends and their struggle to live in the banlieue
Banlieue
In francophone areas, banlieues are the "outskirts" of a city: the zone around a city that is under the city's rule.Banlieues are translated as "suburbs", as these are also residential areas on the outer edge of a city, but the connotations of the term "banlieue" in France can be different from...
s of Paris. The title derives from a line spoken by one of them, Hubert: "La haine attire la haine!", "hatred breeds hatred."
Plot
This film focuses on a single day in the lives of three friends in their early twenties, from immigrant families living in an impoverished multi-ethnic French housing project (a ZUP - ) in the suburbs of Paris, in the aftermath of a riot. Vinz (Vincent CasselVincent Cassel
Vincent Cassel is a Cesar award winning French actor probably best known to English-speaking audiences through his performances in the Ocean's Trilogy of films and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.-Personal life:...
), who is Jewish, is filled with rage. He sees himself as a gangster ready to win respect by killing a cop, and practices the role of Travis Bickle from the film Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
in the mirror. 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
Hubert Koundé
Hubert Koundé is a French actor and film director. Koundé is best known for his role as Hubert in the film La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz. He is also the author of a play: "Cagoule: Valentine and Yamina," performed in 2003...
) is an Afro-French
Afro-French
Black people in France are French citizens or residents who are of Black African or Caribbean ancestry.-Population statistics:Although it is illegal for the French state to collect data on ethnicity and race, a law with its origins in the 1789 revolution and reaffirmed in the constitution of 1958,...
boxer and small time drug dealer, 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 decadent 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
Saïd Taghmaoui
Saïd Taghmaoui is a French actor and screenwriter. One of his defining screen roles was that of Saïd in the award winning 1995 French film La Haine directed by Mathieu Kassovitz...
) is a Maghrebin
Maghreb people
Maghrebis or Maghrebian people or Maghrebians are the inhabitants of the Maghreb countries . During Al-Andalus, Maghrebis were known as Moors.-Origins:...
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. They take a train to Paris but encounter many of the same frustrations, and their responses to benign interactions with Parisians cause the situations to degenerate to gratuitous hostility. A run-in with sadistic Parisian plainclothes police, during which Saïd and Hubert are humiliated and physically abused, results in their missing the last train home and spending the night on the streets. They encounter a group of racist anti-immigrant skinheads who begin to beat Saïd and Hubert savagely, but Vinz's gun allows him to break up the fight and all the skinheads flee except one (portrayed by Kassovitz himself) who 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 return to the banlieue
Banlieue
In francophone areas, banlieues are the "outskirts" of a city: the zone around a city that is under the city's rule.Banlieues are translated as "suburbs", as these are also residential areas on the outer edge of a city, but the connotations of the term "banlieue" in France can be different from...
and split up to their separate homes, and Vinz, in a wise decision, turns the gun over to Hubert, relinquishing his destructive self-image and potentially opening the door to personal growth and a constructive future. 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. However, it can be noted that throughout the film, the gun in Vinz's possession is gradually unloaded through various non fatal firings and/or games of russian roulette (their "friend" Asterix had removed the bullets in the gun as a trick during the game and never replaced them), therefore making the gun unloaded when Vinz threatened to kill the skin head and when Hubert aimed it at the police officer (leading to speculation that Hubert was also killed at the end because his gun had no bullets and was a mere visual/psychological danger). 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.
Cast
- Vincent CasselVincent CasselVincent Cassel is a Cesar award winning French actor probably best known to English-speaking audiences through his performances in the Ocean's Trilogy of films and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.-Personal life:...
as Vinz - Hubert KoundéHubert KoundéHubert Koundé is a French actor and film director. Koundé is best known for his role as Hubert in the film La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz. He is also the author of a play: "Cagoule: Valentine and Yamina," performed in 2003...
as Hubert - Saïd TaghmaouiSaïd TaghmaouiSaïd Taghmaoui is a French actor and screenwriter. One of his defining screen roles was that of Saïd in the award winning 1995 French film La Haine directed by Mathieu Kassovitz...
as Saïd - Abdel Ahmed Ghili as Abdel
- François Levantal as Astérix
- Tadek Lokcinski as Monsieur Toilettes
- Solo as Santo
- Joseph Momo as Ordinary Guy
- Héloïse Rauth as Sarah
- Rywka Wajsbrot as Vinz's Grandmother
- Olga Abrego as Vinz's Aunt
- Laurent Labasse as Cook
- Choukri Gabteni as Saïd's Brother
- Nabil Ben Mhamed as Boy Blague
- Benoît MagimelBenoît MagimelBenoît Magimel is a French actor. A prolific actor who was 14 when he appeared in his first film, Magimel has starred in a variety of roles in French cinema....
as Benoît - Medard Niang as Médard
- Arash Mansour as Arash
- Vincent LindonVincent LindonVincent Lindon is a French actor who has been active for more than 25 years.Lindon was a lover of Princess Caroline of Monaco from 1990 to 1995. He is currently separated from his wife, the French actress Sandrine Kiberlain.-Selected filmography:-External links:...
as Really Drunk Guy
Production
Kassovitz has said that the idea came to him when a young ZairianZaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
, 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. Mathieu Kassovitz included his own experiences; he took part in riots, he acts in a number of scenes and includes his father Peter in another.
The majority of the filming was done in the Parisian suburb of Chanteloup-les-Vignes
Chanteloup-les-Vignes
Chanteloup-les-Vignes is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France.The town was used for a large part of the film La Haine.-Demographic evolution:-References:*...
. Real footage was used for this film, taken from 1986–96; riots still took place during the time of filming. Some of the actors were not professional. Money was an issue in producing the film. Kassovitz used simple special effects, filmed in black and white and used a handheld camera due to not having a big budget.
The film is dedicated to those who died while it was being made ("Ce film est dédié à ceux disparus pendant sa fabrication...")
Reception
La Haine was well received. The film had a total of 2,042,070 admissions in France where it was the 14th highest grossing film of the year. Based on 14 reviews collected by Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 100%, with an average score of 8/10. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
called the film "raw, vital and captivating". Wendy Ide of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
stated that La Haine is "One of the most blisteringly effective pieces of urban cinema ever made."
It was ranked #32 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
Awards
- Best DirectorBest Director Award (Cannes Film Festival)The Best Director Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946....
(1995 Cannes Film Festival1995 Cannes Film Festival-Jury:*Jeanne Moreau *Gianni Amelio *Jean-Claude Brialy *Nadine Gordimer *Gaston Kabore *Michele-Ray Gavras *Emilio Garcia Riera *Philippe Rousselot *John Waters...
) - Mathieu KassovitzMathieu KassovitzMathieu Kassovitz is a French director, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for his Cannes-winning drama La Haine. Kassovitz is also the founder of MNP Entreprise, a film production company.... - Best Editing (César Awards) - Mathieu KassovitzMathieu KassovitzMathieu Kassovitz is a French director, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for his Cannes-winning drama La Haine. Kassovitz is also the founder of MNP Entreprise, a film production company....
and Scott Stevenson - Best Film (César Awards) - Mathieu KassovitzMathieu KassovitzMathieu Kassovitz is a French director, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for his Cannes-winning drama La Haine. Kassovitz is also the founder of MNP Entreprise, a film production company....
- Best Producer (César Awards) - Christophe Rossignon
- Best Young Film (European Film Awards) - Mathieu KassovitzMathieu KassovitzMathieu Kassovitz is a French director, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for his Cannes-winning drama La Haine. Kassovitz is also the founder of MNP Entreprise, a film production company....
- Best Foreign Language Film (Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards)
- Best Director (Lumiere Awards) - Mathieu KassovitzMathieu KassovitzMathieu Kassovitz is a French director, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for his Cannes-winning drama La Haine. Kassovitz is also the founder of MNP Entreprise, a film production company....
- Best Film (Lumiere Awards) - Mathieu KassovitzMathieu KassovitzMathieu Kassovitz is a French director, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for his Cannes-winning drama La Haine. Kassovitz is also the founder of MNP Entreprise, a film production company....
Home media
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 CommunicationsCharter Communications
Charter Communications is an American company providing cable television, high-speed Internet, and telephone services to more than 4.7 million customers in 25 states. By revenues, it is the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States, behind Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox Communications...
Channels. Both HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
versions have also been released in Europe.
See also
- List of French-language films
- Social situation in the French suburbsSocial situation in the French suburbsOutside of Paris are large blocks of government-built public housing, known as banlieues. The banlieues house hundreds of thousands of individuals of North African descent...
External links
- Stanford University Review
- Working Class France..." POV by Matthieu Kassovitz about the 2005 riots in France
- La Haine: Kassovitz vs. Sarkozy Debate between Kassovitz and Nicolas Sarkozy