La Haine (Criterion Collection)
by Mathieu Kassovitz
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DVD details
Actor: Beno?t Magimel, Francois Toumarkine, Hubert Kound?, Sa?d Taghmaoui, Vincent CasselDirector: Mathieu Kassovitz
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Pierre A?m
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-04-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion
DVD Reviews of La Haine (Criterion Collection)
DVD Review: 3.5 stars out of 4
Summary: 5 Stars
The Bottom Line:
Guilty only of overplaying its metaphoric hands (how many times did we need to hear the story of the guy jumping off the building?), La Haine/Hate is a gripping story of three friends in the Paris suburbs (slums) which features incredible black and white cinematography and builds to a powerful climax--it didn't get much press in America, but do yourself a favor and watch it.
DVD Review: It matters how you land
Summary: 3 Stars
The film's black and white filming assumes an appropriate grittiness. So too the semi-documentary flavour. That violence breeds violence is the despairing story of the depressing society of the housing estates.The establishing image is of a graffiti, to which the film addresses itself. Kassovitz's film follows three young men through twenty-four hours. If the film has lost none of its punch since the mid 90s it is probably due to the reality of those continuing conditions. Racial intolerance and police brutality, the government's reaction to the malaise have only intensified. I felt the sudden zooms were effective and the closeups on the three leads facilitated the message. I liked the scale of the figures against the urban settings, the grubby subways stations, the flickering screens, the massive public sculpture. The explicit violence is familiar to me. I live in a racially divided town. Police intervention on the streets and the neighbourhood are commonplace. Though the civil diturbances, erupting out of langour and hopelessness, are not as seething, a bomb ticking, as per La Haine. From my tangent, the film was, if anything, a bit soft.DVD Review: Powerful Stuff
Summary: 5 Stars
In many ways, this powerful movie is like a Chekhov story where the mere presence of a gun requires its use. The story follows three young men the day after a riot in a French ghetto where the racial tension and police tension is not merely hiding under the surface, but always present. Without going into many details, the movie is a powerful statement about racial identity and the power struggles that are embedded in society. My French has been deteriorating for years, but even if it hadn't, I would have needed the subtitles since much of the language is slang. Everything about the movie seemed very real and the ending will haunt you for days. DVD Review: The French "Do the right thing"
Summary: 5 Stars
A film that created massive controversy when it first came out (When it was shown the local police turned their backs on the cast as protest) This film is something of a French answer to the Spike Lee film "Do the right thing."
Set in a Paris suburb a young man is in hospital suffering from serious injury inflicted during a riot the night before. Three young men, one a white Jew, the other an Arab and the third a Black live in the same suburb. One of them discovers a gun that was recovered during the riots, concealing it on him while they take a trip through Paris (One of them states that he will kill a policeman if they young lad in hospital dies of his injuries)
The film depicts the dark desperation and alienation of young people living in the Parisian suburbs far away from the wealth and luxury that we usually associate with Paris. They live with unemployment, gangs,drugs and social isolation. What is interesting though is in spite of this they still share a common theme in spite of race or religion. It is always remarked that the working lass communities are where real racial integration is to be found and this film depicts just that.
There trip to the city confronts them with not only racism but also mistreatment by the Police. The film ends with a violent and sad conclusion that may leave you angry and as desperate as the characters portrayed in the film.
Shot in black and white this adds to the stark surroundings of where the young men lived. The camera work is excellent especially the panoramic view of the suburb while the song "Sound of the police" by BDP rings out.
Well worth watching.
DVD Review: Who's Gun is it Anyway?
Summary: 5 Stars
Call me crazy but La Haine is a masterpiece. Absorbing, shocking, funny, attractive, absurd, frightening-all apply here. Though I watched it 12 years after it was released, it is not dated in the least (a quality enough to differentiate it from 95% of film). But that is not it's mere characteristic.
The performances of three pals from a banlieue (French housing project/ghetto/suburb) are verty exciting: fun, natural, edgy, caring. The cinematography ranges from arching overheard tracking shots to framed photgraph-like set-ups maximizing the environment's complex nature; then shakey, viscerally charged in-the-mix and jangly visions of street life and it's daily violence, and in black and white, using shadows and gray's to highlight the beauty and the sadness of these guy's lives. The music is wonderful, American Hip-Hop's global influence all the more validated.
The socio-political scope of La Haine is staggering. Precient and current, Mathieu Kassovitz's knowledge and bravery in expressing the teaming stresses of the French immigrant underclass again remind that artists foretell coming storms, issues, ideas.
La Haine belongs to the Criterion Collection's mandate of important films. See it and know what I mean.
Description of La Haine (Criterion Collection)
When he was just twenty-nine years old, Mathieu Kassovitz took the international film world by storm with La haine (Hate), a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically in the low-income banlieue districts on Paris's outskirts. Aimlessly whiling away their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz, Hubert, and Sa?d-a Jew, an African, and an Arab-give human faces to France's immigrant populations, their bristling resentments at their social marginalization slowly simmering until they reach a climactic boiling point. A work of tough beauty, La haine is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country's ongoing identity crisis.It's easy to see why La Haine had such an explosive effect when it was released in France; its potent portrait of racial discord and life in the housing projects outside of Paris is at odds with France's egalitarian vision of itself. This impact wouldn't have lasted, however, were the movie purely a political statement; fortunately, it's a riveting journey that follows three unemployed young men (Said Taghmaoui, Hubert Kounde, and Vincent Cassel) as they wander and try to decide what to do with the gun that one of them has found. This simple scenario results in a remarkably complex examination of race, class, violence, and the abuse of power in modern society, yet never feels preachy or forced. Hugely influenced by American directors like Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee (particularly Do the Right Thing), La Haine riffs through different styles and techniques, yet the movie feels organic and whole, driven by a genuinely passionate point of view. Dynamic, reckless, sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle (and sometimes both; in one scene, Hubert and Said have been picked up by the police, who torture them for kicks. But watching the abuse is a rookie cop whose face quietly ripples with dismay, helplessness, and resignation), this is a must-see.
As is usual with Criterion releases, the extra features are excellent, including an in-depth but accessible documentary about the housing projects and riots that inspired the film, retrospective material on the making of the movie, behind-the-scenes horseplay, intriguing deleted scenes (with brief but revealing explanations about the deletion from director Mathieu Kassovitz), and a wonderfully articulate introduction by Jodie Foster, who championed the film upon its release and distributed it through her production company. The audio commentary by Kassovitz, who's fluent in English, is circumspect and thoughtful, with flashes of sardonic humor. Kassovitz's directing career has turned decidedly less political (his more recent movies include The Crimson Rivers and Gothika), but his perspective on La Haine and its inspirations remains sharp and lucid. --Bret Fetzer
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