PVLD CINE-MONDE Film Blog: Movies and Mirrors

Much has been said and written about this Kassovitz film since it was made in 1995. I saw it when it came out on DVD in France soon after its release. I was then teaching at the University of Toledo and included the film in my French classes as well as in a course I developed on Intercultural Communication taught in English. I have used it regularly in my high school sophomore, junior, and senior classes and will continue to adopt it as long as I teach.

While many individuals found it hard to watch it at the  recently held French Film Festival, just as many watched it until the end and participated in the discussion. The questions that are usually asked about this film might help better appreciate the issues this film raises. While on the surface these issues might seem foreign to us because they occur in France, they are familiar because we face them in the US as well. They are, in fact, universal.

Is it real?
It’s as real as cinema is. It’s a highly stylized representation of serious and real social problems in France and elsewhere. There are documentaries that could be called more real, or films that are more realist in the way they treat a topic.

What is this film really about?
Director Kassovitz gives us an expertly crafted story of 20 hours in the lives of three cité-dwellers following riots due to the shooting of Abdel Ichaha, another young man who lives in the Cité, now in the hospital in critical condition.  But beyond just building the story of these three men, he ends up commenting on various aspects of modern French society (mainstream and peripheral) as a whole.

For some brief background information about the context of this film, please read the following two Wikipedia articles. There are other references in them, if you’d like to read further.

2005 Civil Unrest in France–Wikipedia
Social Situation in the French Suburbs–Wikipedia

The film is esthetically highly stylized (making it a rich viewing experience) and is very sensitively put together. While there is reference to violence in all forms (linguistic, visual, etc.), Kassovitz decides to include only one (or two) real acts of violence in the entire film. The point he so eloquently makes is that all these references to violence achieve is to underscore the lack of identity among young males like these three protagonists. He points to an idleness and disenchantment via the use of empty dialogs replete with references to violence and visions of power that are no more than painful reminders of  the impotency of the male youth.

It’s so depressing…
Indeed. While these three young men have few dreams (Hubert’s being the most specific and uplifting), there are clear signs that the director has presented a complex picture. There is the policeman who is silently watching his colleagues ruff up Saïd and Hubert. He does not like what he sees. There are women in the art gallery who are curious and willing to talk to Saïd until such time as he advances too quickly. There is the maternal and family element present that upholds good values even though they seem hard to apply. The juxtaposition of the banlieue and Paris represents all that these men do not have,  but the men’s perspective on their cité is positive.  They don’t feel the same way about Paris where they are locked in (after the last train leaves). Metaphorically, this speaks volumes about the comfort their own world promises them and how ill at-ease they are in the capital city whose people and ways are foreign to them. Finally, Vinz who has sworn to kill if his friend Abdel perishes in the hospital, is not able to act when he has the opportunity. He and his buddies are not killer criminals, they’re shown as caught in a much broader social and economic web that has characteristically paralyzed them (at least temporarily).

Why are there so many direct and oblique references to the US in it?
It’s true that symbols of American pop culture are everywhere in the film. The director, Matthieu Kassovitz, then 26 years old, pays homage to great American film directors including Scorsese, Tarantino, Brian de Palma and Spike Lee. Music including some rap and reggae, and graffiti, street advertisements, artwork on T-shirts, and references to New York abound as well. Please refer to a list of American movies below that are embedded in many of the scenes of La haine. The three friends refer to themselves as “homeboys” and their neighborhood as “the hood.” We see someone wearing a Notre Dame jacket. Another dons a T-shirt which proclaims that “Elvis Shot JFK,” and another “Hell’s Angels.” Someone insults another by saying, “Your mother drinks Bud.” Another guy is nicknamed “Walmart.” He deals in smuggled goods.

Neologisms, Slang, “Verlan,” and Subtitling It All!
Anyone not accustomed to using or hearing slang (American or French) has a hard time following the film at first. The language is laced with invented words, slang, and verlan (French slang often used in the Cités) as well as American pop cultural references, from the movies Lethal Weapon, Taxi Driver, and Batman. There are many references to French pop culture though that are hard to translate for the non-French speaking audience. Thus the subtitles change the nickname Astérix to Snoopy. Read this interesting blog entry for more on this subject!

Can a film change things?
A film can have a significant impact on society such that it becomes the point of departure for projects undertaken to address an ongoing problem. La Haine certainly falls in this category of films even though it’s not a documentary.  A recent example of such a phenomenon in the US is An Inconvenient Truth, and there are other documentaries that have literally and metaphorically opened the eyes of the public about many other issues (Supersize Me, Food, Inc.,). That said, when a feature-film has an equally great or even greater impact, cinema is at its best.

This film, and others like it, are studied by many academic departments (Foreign Language, English, Women’s Studies, International Relations, African Studies, Film Studies, Global Studies, and many Colleges of Education across the country. These films would contribute much more by becoming a required part of the broader curricular plan whether it be high school or college (or both).

Young people all over the world grow up with stereotypical images about terms such as ghetto, rap, reggae, drugs, violence, money, yuppies, ivy leaguers, suburbia, etc.  The terms change according to the local language and social mores, and there are obviously things that set apart someone living in a favela, a ghetto, a cité, or jhuggi. But there are many universal truths that run across them all as well. Truths about social unrest, police brutality, urban youth, racial tensions, unemployment, immigration patterns, socio-economic status, and more.

A film like La Haine provides a context within which one might explore some of these stereotypes. It puts a face on what is usually no more than a  vague image or concept in the mind of the lay person.  It provides a springboard for discussing our own assumptions and understandings using the voices of Saïd, Hubert, and Vinz. That’s why I love it.

Visit this site to peruse the Film Festival called Festival ciné-banlieue, held in the banlieue and representing the banlieue.  See the Program 2009.  Also see the program for Panorama des cinémas du Maghreb 2009.

The home connection
“By the time of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which began in South Central and spread throughout the city, South Central had become a byword for urban decay. Its bad reputation was broadcast by movies such as Colors, South Central, Menace II Society, Friday, South Central native John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood and in music by the rap group N.W.A.’s album Straight Outta Compton.”–Wikipedia

For more reading options, Google LA Eastside, East Los Angeles region, South Central LA, Whittier Blvd, or Olvera St.  Then there’s “Southie” or South Boston, Addams Area or Northwest Side (Chicago), Bed-Stuy (New York), etc., etc.

Other related films:
FILMS FROM FRANCE
2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle aka 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (France) 1967 Jean-Luc Goddard
De bruit et de fureur aka Sound and Fury (réaliste) (France) 1988 Jean-Claude Brisseau
(won Cannes, César nomination)
L.627 (France) 1992 Bernard Tavernier
(4 César Nominations)
Etat des lieux aka Inner City (France) 1995 Jean-François Richet
(won Avignon, César nomination)
Douce France (France) 1995 Malik Chibane
(won Namur, Locarno nomination)
Raï (France) 1995 Thomas Gilou
(won 2 Locarno, 1 Paris)
Bye-Bye (France) 1996 Karim Dridi
(won César, 1 Thessaloniki, 1 nomination)
Ma 6-T va crack-er (France) 1997 Jean-François Richet
Wesh-Wesh, qu’est-ce qui se passe? (France) 2001 Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche
(won Bergamo, Berlin, Entrevues, Prix Louis Delluc…)
L’Esquive aka Games of Love and Chance (France) 2003 Abdel Kechiche
(15 awards…)
La petite Jerusalem aka (France) 2004 Karin Albou
(Won Cannes, Lumière, Etoiles d’Or, French Syndicate; César and Brussels nominations)
Banlieue 13 aka District 13 (France) 2004 Pierre Morel
(won Golden Trailer)
Voisins, voisines aka Résidence Mozart (France) 2005 Malik Chibane
Regarde moi aka Ain’t Scared (France) 2007 Audrey Estrougo
(won Durban International)
La graine et le mulet aka The Secret of the Grain (France) 2007 Abdel Kechiche
(18 awards)
Dans la vie aka Two Ladies (France) 2008 Philippe Faucon
(won 2 Mons International Festival of Love Films)
Entre les murs aka The Class (France) 2008 Laurent Cantet
(won 8 awards, nominated for 13 including Oscar for Best Foreign Film)

US FILMS
2001: A Space Odyssey (USA) 1968 Stanley Kubrick
(Oscar, won 10 others and 6 nominations)
Mean Streets (USA) 1973 Martin Scorsese
(won 2 awards, 1 nomination)
Scarface (USA) 1983 Brian de Palma
(3 Golden Globe nominations and 3 other nominations)
Do the Right Thing (USA) 1989 Spike Lee
(11 awards, 2 Oscar nominations and 6 other nominations)
Boyz n the Hood (USA) 1991 John Singleton
(8 awards, 2 Oscar nominations and 4 other nominations)
Menace II Society (USA) 1993 Albert Hughes
(won Independent Spirit, MTV, 2 nominations)
Pulp Fiction (USA) 1994 Quentin Tarentino
(won Oscar, 43 other awards and 40 nominations)
American History X (USA) 1998 Tony Kaye
(won 2 awards, Oscar nomination, and 9 other nominations)
To Live and Die in L.A. (USA) 1985 William Friedkin
(3 awards)

FILMS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES
C’est arrivé près de chez vous aka Man Bites Dog (Belgium) 1992 Rémy Belvaux et al.
(6 awards including Cannes and 4 nominations)
Cidade de Deus aka City of God (Brazil) 2002 Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund
(55 awards, 4 Oscar nominations and 25 other nominations)
This is England (UK) 2006 Shane Meadows
(won BAFTA, 7 other awards and 13 nominations)
Tropa de elite (Brazil) 2007 José Padilha
(Won Argentinian Film Critics, Ariel Award, Berlin… 30 awards and 9 nominations)

Film analysis
There are way too many references to make a list here since I would not want to leave out any.  Here are a few that can be accessed easily online.  Two are in English, one in French.
La Haine: Framing the ‘Urban Outcasts’
The representation of the banlieue in La Haine
La Haine analysis -Video in French

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