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La Haine

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Main Themes to look at…

• B&W Cinematography

• Underbelly of Paris (Banlieue’s)

• Youth Issues

• 3 Characters

B&W Cinematography

- Documentary Style - Link to Opening of Film

- Bleached & Stark

- Plain - Nothingness

- No ‘Light’

- Represents the lives of the Youth

- Represents how France want the Banlieue’s to be

To look at these…

• Underbelly of Paris (Banlieue’s)

• Youth Issues

We need to look at the context…

Social, historical and political Contexts

The projects or, les banlieues:

- Banlieues are satellite ‘new towns’ (for which read housing estates for the poor) up to twenty miles out of Paris that almost seem designed to keep the poor out of the middle-class centre of the city

- The‘new town’ in which La Haine was filmed had at the time an official population of 10,000 made up of sixty different nationalities or ethnicities

- Theseare stereotyped in the media as places of urban deprivation crime and drug use.

The French Empire and Imperialism...

France was a major colonial power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and South-East Asia.

-Thstruggle for independence was particularly bitter in some countries such as Algeria SAID! (which gained independence in 1962) and Vietnam (where the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954).

-SomeColonies, like Martinique, remain and are able to send representatives to the French Assembly. Other former colonies, like Senegal, remain closely linked to France and French culture.

-FrenchPolicy towards non – white ethnic groups has always been on of ‘assimilation’ with people being expected to take on French cultural norms and values. Many Algerians, Moroccans Tunisians, in particular, who went to France to work during the 1960s, have to a greater or lesser extent resisted this policy.

-Maintaining the purity of the French language both at home and abroad was given a much higher priority than the British gave to upholding the English usage in their colonies

- Verlan, or‘backslang’, began around Paris in the 1980s, among second generation ethnic minority young people who saw themselves as positioned between their parents’ culture and French culture.

Racism

migration was limited by the French government during the economic crisis of the early 1970s.

- Facsist far-right groups (as in many other European countries during the period) have consistently blamed unemployment on immigrants.

- In t 1980s the National Front began to win some local elections and even parliamentary seats, especially in South and Southwest France.- Those Who administered Vichy France during the Second World War collaborated in sending French Jews to the concentration camps

- Kassovitz father (who himself fled Hungary in 1956) was the son of a concentration camp survivor. CAN LINK TO UK

The Police and Racism

There are two main police groups in the film: the neighborhood plain clothes police (apparent good guys!) and the riot police

- Racism (as in the UK) has been seen to be a particular problem in the police force.

- Therwere over 300 deaths in police custody or from police action from 1980 to 1995 when the film was made.

Extra Bits…

Each of the film’s characters comes from one of the three groups most visible as outsiders in today’s France.

The three men all share the same environment and experience the same events but bring different perspectives to bear on their common situation.

The Characters…

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Hubert

Hubert, a young African, is a small-time hashish dealer whose boxing gym was destroyed in the vandalism of the riots. He seems to be the most rational of the three friends, but now that his life’s work has been taken away from him, he will do anything to escape his neighborhood.

Hubert is more of an observer, calming the other two when passions rise. He seems older and more sensitive to people and events and acts as the peacemaker.

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Said

Saïd, an Arab, seems unwilling to acknowledge the problems of his surroundings except by expressing amazement or incomprehension of them.

Said is again, like Vinz, quick to respond, but appears to be less motivated by hate and more by what he sees as self-respect. His aggression is less damaging and at times, more humorous.

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Vinz

Vinz is a Jewish youth who finds a gun that was lost by a police officer during the riots. He is the angriest of the three and does not hesitate to offer violence as a means of releasing his bitterness.

Vinz is the character who is central to most of the action and comes across as the stereotypical ‘angry young man’. He rarely stops to think about what he is doing or saying, and ploughs straight in, often inflaming and infuriating the situation, with disastrous consequences.

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