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In terms of the cast, the three protagonists are all minority groups in French society. The surrounding neighbourhood is a veritable assortment of vandalized concrete structures, deserted buildings and burnt shells of cars far from the café society imagery international filmgoers had been fed on for years.
#LA HAINE REVIEW WINDOWS#
La haine transports viewers from a familiar and luxurious Paris to its banlieues-suburbs, marked by housing projects and urban decay.Įarly in the film when Saïd stands in front of the complex wherein Vinz resides, we’re shown dozens of apartments crammed and stacked claustrophobically together, the residents practically spilling out the windows to complain about the noise.
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This eclectic blend illustrates a clash between the classic idea of French cultural identity of yesteryear and the harsher, americanized reality of modern France.Īnother trait lifted from American cinema of the era is the film’s “life in a day” structure also seen in features such as Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Kevin Smith’s Clerks (another black and white film coincidently) both films that deal with issues of racial tension and adolescent ennui, respectively.įor decades, the global perception of French cinema was dominated by Gallic stereotypes of bourgeois-bohème Parisians, navel-gazing against the backdrop of the Champs-Élysées or a well-to-do café. The second scene features a cameo by DJ Cut Killer, playing a mix of KRS-One’s “Sound of da Police”, interspersed snippets of French hip-hop artists Assassin and Suprême NTM with the declaration “Nique la police” (“Fuck the police”), as well as samples of Édith Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien”. What makes this sequence remarkable is Vinz’s Gallic appropriation of this classic morsel of American pop culture, translating the phrase into a very informal French “c’est à moi qu’tu parles!?” There are two scenes in particular that showcase the uniquely Franco-American spirit of the film, starting with the scene where protagonist Vinz postures aggressively in front of his bathroom mirror, aping Robert De Niro’s iconic “You talkin’ to me?” monologue from Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. While the band of cinéphiles that pioneered the French New Wave found immense artistic value in the auteur cinema of the likes of Howard Hawks and Nicholas Ray, Kassovitz visibly borrows and pays homage to tropes of New Hollywood cinema-most notably Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets-and contemporary hip-hop culture of 1970s and 1980s America. Interestingly, both La nouvelle vague and La haine drew inspiration from the same source American cinema. Regarding the state of French cinema at the time of the film’s release, director Mathieu Kassovitz remarked on the commentary track of La haine that the that the once-innovative French New Wave had become harmful to the evolution of French cinema in the 1980s. American Influence on the Film and Culture Here are five elaborations on why La haine is the most important film in modern French cinema:ġ. La haine remains a renowned and significant example of modern French film, primarily for two related reasons: Firstly because it manages to perfectly capture the state of contemporary French cinema, whilst secondly expertly portraying the state of contemporary French society.įurthermore, La haine also opened filmgoers’ eyes to a France unknown to many cinéphiles the world over while addressing social injustices and cunningly reversing age-old damaging stereotypes.įinally, upon its release the film provided a new lease on life for French filmmakers with its fresh new aesthetic and the urgent pertinence of its subject matter. With the title derived from the phrase in the film: “Hate breeds hated” (“La haine attire la haine”), La haine is not only shockingly relevant in modern society, but in modern cinema as well. With the heritage of 1990s riots opposing police brutality and the inequality between race and class alike still very much alive, perhaps it is shameful that the controversial issues raised in La haine remain as relevant as they are.