La Haine Film Analysis

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Julie JEAN HED 1000 10/14/10 La Haine Shot in black and white, La Haine is the story of three friends in their early twenties, from immigrant families living in a poor multi-ethnic housing project in the ghetto of Paris, which French people refer to as the “banlieue”. Vinz is a Jewish filled with rage who believes he is a gangster, Hubert is a thoughtful Afro-French boxer who deals hashish and wants to leave the ghetto but still refuses to provoke the police, and Said is a Maghrebin who has the role of mediator between his two friends. The movie is about a single day, the most decisive day, of their lives. The action takes place the day after a riot between the youth of this banlieue and the police forces. This riot occurred because…show more content…
First of all, the extremely crowded housing estate gives us a feeling of claustrophobia and oppression, which is accentuated during the scenes that take place in the characters’ flats. Another characteristic of life in the Banlieue we can see in this film is that the people who lives there does not have much to do, it is always the same aimless daily routine and the youth struggle to entertain themselves. As we can see in La Haine, Hubert is the only one who has a job with his gym (before it burned down) and all the other characters are unemployed and seem to have delinquent behavior. We can also see this feeling of boredom through the characters’ meaningless conversations and the scenes when the three boys are walking around in the Banlieue, where there are many other youths just standing around and talking to each other, which most of the time puts them under police scrutiny. Moreover, the feeling of rejection from the rest of the society is well demonstrated in the scene where a news crew wants to interview the main characters from their van. Hubert claims that they are not in a zoo, which is usually how the media treats people in the banlieue by reinforcing stereotypes. Like every human being, they are individuals trying their best to deal with the pressure that they are subjected to. At times, everyone makes…show more content…
“La Haine: Framing the ‘Urban Outcasts’. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies. <http://www.acme-journal.org/vol6/ASi.pdf>. Siciliano, Amy. “La Haine: Framing the ‘Urban Outcasts’. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies. <http://www.acme-journal.org/vol6/ASi.pdf>. This article provides an overview of what the banlieue look like in France and how the movie La Haine relates to its living conditions. The author also provides the reader with a deep analysis of Kassovitz’s intentions while making this movie and the reasons why La Haine is still popular in France. She even reveals details to demonstrate why things did not change much since the film was first introduced to the public. However, Amy Siciliano only focuses on the way youth is portrayed, but not really on its relationships with women and with the police. Ruggiero, Roberto. Paganini,

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