La Haine

Jonathan Skewes, Elizabeth DeBerardinis,

Beate Aguayo, and Kathy Ma

In the opening scene, there are a lot of people running around, going from

store to store to break things, breaking public property, some try to fight

another, there were things burning on the street. There were many police try

to stop them, and got injured.

The music played in the opening scene was Burnin’ and Lootin by Bob

Marley, and the song sends the message that people need to stands up for

their rights. The government was taking advantage of the poor, and only

helping the rich The introduction music remind me of some events in French

history, where lower class people did not get treated fairly, there were

farmers who work at the farm but did not get to own the land. They always

have to pay taxes and rent.

According to the author of one blog, Cinéma Engagé is designed to give unjust systems, like the police in La Haine, a bad name. Fiomakers choose this type of work to defend minorities. An example of this is how the public were amazed to see what life was like in les banlieues. They saw how violent the police acted towards the people. The movie caused a lot of talk as well because of its controversial subject matter and how the police were represented as violent and racist.

(Article cited written by Charlotte Harel, Helena Rodriguez, and Margaux Le Roy)

The director of La Haine, Mathieu Kassovitz, put the movie in black and white for many reasons. It was originally shot in color and then he made it into black and white. I think it really helps to set the mood of the movie to give it a cold harsh feeling, which goes with the violence. The police try to control the people through violence and abuse their power. The use of black and white also expresses the idea of accepting a situation that you are given and having to deal with it. It does this by linking the real footage from the news reports that we watch in the beginning of the movie in the opening credits. Lastly, I think the use of black and white cinematography makes the movie seem like a documentary (Turner) . It makes people feel like they are learning about life in the banlieues. The main feeling that was generated throughout this movie was resentment to the police, and this was also generated by the use of black and white imagery. Black and white are polar opposites, so the director used this to show the stark differences between the citizens of the banlieues and the police.

Two of the three main characters didn’t have true

hatred for the police, and one of them, Hubert, said

that they were they to protect them. However, the

two characters who don’t hate the police are

victims of police brutality. This changes their views

on the police because now they have experienced

police brutality.

There still are racial tensions and conflicts that characterize French society today. One article that I found that talked about recent police brutality was about how an anti-police protest turned very violent in the city of Rennes. The youth wore masks to protect their identity. Protesters became extremely violent in response to the death of a 21 year old activist RemiFraisse. He was killed during an explosion that occurred when brutal clashes with police broke out at the site of contested-dam project in southwestern France. The protesters reacted by hurling flairs at police and even flipping cars over. The police fired tear gas at the protesters. This riot also put pressure on the government. This article is just one example of how conflicts with police still occur in French Society today. We can also see strong ties from this article to the movie La Haine, because we see how poorly the police treat their people in the riots .

http://rt.com/news/201179-france-activist-death-clashes/

Vinz

• Jewish

• Wants revenge on police

• Represents the upset

people in the banlieues

Hubert

• Afro-French

• Boxer

• Mature

• Pro police, but once he is a victim

of police brutality, his views of

the police change

• Believes that as long as the youth

disrespect the police, the police

will disrespect the youth

Saïd

• Represents the North

African, Muslim population

• Young

• Sidekick

• Gets the group in trouble

with a wealthy guy in

downtown Paris

According to Erin Schroeder, the banlieues are a predominantly working-class

industrial suburb of Paris. These working-class industrial suburbs are made up

of numerous immigrant cultures which create an incredibly diverse population

as well as various national problems. As we saw in La Haine, each of the three

main characters has significantly different cultural backgrounds which causes

them to have different views regarding the situation with the police. While the

three boys have differing views on how to deal with the police because of what

happened to Abdel, the three all seem to have a consensus regarding their

disposition towards authority figures. There is an obvious lack of respect

between the youth and the police in these industrial suburbs. As Schroeder

says, “In the contemporary context, unemployment is high, housing is

crumbling, and periodic bursts of youth protest lead the national government to

prescribe an almost permanent riot police presence in the most explosive or

"hot" neighborhoods (les quartiers chauds)”.

The movie utilizes the expression “a zoo you visit in your car” in reference to the

banlieues. This expression is used to illustrate the way which these working-class

suburbs are almost completely cut off from any association or connection with central

Paris. Because the banlieues are so effectively cut off from the outside world, they are

somewhat enclosed in their own world and as a result have created walls which

separate this world from the rest of Paris. This separation has allowed the rest of Paris

look at the banlieues and the people that live there as one would look at animals in a

zoo. These working-class suburbs are merely a spectacle for the rest of Paris to gawk

at when driving by. Amy Siciliano, from the University of Toronto describes how the

camera positioning in La Haine contributes to the overall illustration of how the rest

of Paris views people from the banlieues, “We observe the youths’ hostile interactions

with the crew; their relative position to them in a playground below ground level;

their projected image, which oscillates between the view of the La Haine: Framing

the ‘Urban Outcasts’ 224 cinematographer and the cameraman; and ultimately how

the youth themselves are acutely aware of their ‘safari-like’ appearance” (Siciliano,

Amy).

La Haine portrays the banlieues as an area of dilapidated apartment buildings with

graffiti on almost every wall. Youth cover the streets as the majority of them are

outside playing, walking, meeting friends, selling and buying drugs, etc. The youth

which fill the streets of the banlieues are clearly not children of wealth. Most of them

are wearing simple clothing that looks worn out. The jungle gyms which we see Vinz,

Hubert, and Said hangout at are not updated, clean or even safe looking. Every single

detail of the banlieues is depressing and illustrates the government’s lack of concern

for this area of Paris. Adele Chapman, successfully describes the way in which the

film depicts the banlieues in an article for Entertainment Scene 360, “The whole

estate looks dirty because of the high volume of graffiti on almost everything. There

are lots of high rise flats, which house lots of people, but each flat is small. The

banlieue looks very small and claustrophobic, almost prison like” (Chapman, Adele).

The final scene was inevitable. At the end, there was a man driving a car and

approaching the three main characters. He had a light flashing on top of his

car, so he could be a policeman, but he was not in uniform. He killed Vinz and

wanted to kill another character. Hubert was closing his eyes, which sows he

could already see how the scene is going to play out. The best illustration of

the relationship between youth and police in the banlieues is this scene. Phillip

Cartelli explains this relationship in his review of La Haine by saying, “The

shocking eruption of violence that ends the film serves as both a warning, and

documentation of the pressures to which those on all sides of banlieue life are

subjected”.

Sources • Cartelli, Phillip. "La Haine (1995) France." Rev. of Film. Film International 2008: 62-64. Print.

• Chapman, Adele. "Movie Analysis the Representation of the Banlieue in La Haine." Entertainment Scene 360. N.p., 18 June 2007. Web. 23

Oct. 2014. http://www.entertainmentscene360.com/index.php/movie-analysis-the-representation-of-the-banlieue-in-la-haine-43462/.

• Harel, Charlotte, Helena Rodriguez, and Margaux Le Roy. "Le Cinéma Engagé : TPE 1ES3." Le Cinéma Engagé : TPE 1ES3. N.p., Jan. 2011.

Web. 21 Nov. 2014. http://cinema-engage.blogspot.com/.

• Morrisey, Jim. Je t’aime—moi non plus; Franco-British cinematic relations. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. Print.

• Schroeder, Erin. “A Multicultural Conversation: La Haine, Raï, and Menace II Society.” Camera Obscura 16.1 (2001): 143-179. Web. 23 Oct.

2014.

• Siciliano, Amy. La Haine. Harlow: Longman, 2000. ACME Editorial Collective, 2007. Web. 23 Oct. 2014. http://www.acme-

journal.org/vol6/ASi.pdf.

• Turner, Pete. "La Haine." STATIC MASS EMPORIUM RSS. METATEMPUS, 30 Nov. 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

http://staticmass.net/deconstructing-cinema/la-haine/.

• West, M Joan. “La Haine.” Cinéaste. 33.1 (2007): 76-77. Web 24 Oct. 2014.

• Photo of Vinz taken from Dr. Guy Spielmann’s blog titled France: Culture banlieues. He works at Georgetown University.

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/spielmag/docs/france/LaHaine.htm.

• Photo of Hubert taken from shipintv.com. Article published by Grinchu on July 15, 2013. Article titled Hubert Koundé.

http://shpintv.com/hubert-kounde/

• Photo of Saïd taken from an article titled France/Benin/Morocco: Jodie Foster on "La Haine”. Published on September 7, 2009 for bombastic

element. http://www.bombasticelement.org/2009/09/francebeninmorocco-jodie-foster-on-la.html

• Screenshots of les banlieues, the train, and the police brutality scene all taken from Blu-ray.com. The article was written on May 8, 2012, and

it’s titled La Haine Blue-ray. http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/La-Haine-Blu-ray/38677/#Screenshots.

• Photo of final scene taken from minineyes’s tumblr blog. Posted three months ago. http://minineyes.tumblr.com