(That Hubert is more politically aware is signalled, for instance, by the pictures on his bedroom wall.) Said watches events unfold, seeing the story of his two friends play itself out before his eyes with a fatal inevitability within the context of the wider social narrative. He is linked to this object, not only physically in that he possesses it but also emotionally in that he displays himself as something of a ‘loose cannon’, someone who could explode into violence.2 Hubert is the most carefully outlined character: we see him alone in his bedroom and at home with his mother, for instance, in scenes that do not move the plot forward but which increase our understanding of his character and intensify our sense of empathy with him.
![la haine 1995 la haine 1995](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lXEypASVE-0/ToU5ax8qEQI/AAAAAAAAEHg/hEk16ZoxSTU/s1600/La+Haine.jpg)
#La haine 1995 series
Through a series of scenes, for example, Vinz is associated with the key prop of the handgun: the object that is dangerous in that it is likely to ‘go off’ with deadly consequences. Because he is ‘white’ it is Vinz, for example, who is given the task of attempting to gain entry to a middle-class block of flats in central Paris.1īut, of course, Kassovitz is also producing an engaging narrative that will sit comfortably and entertainingly within the sphere of popular cinema and so the characters are carefully delineated. To them, drawn together by a shared youth culture, these differences seem unimportant but at the same time each of them is very aware of the ways in which others in France might look at their ethnicity. The ethnic origins of our three central characters, Said, Vinz and Hubert, are made clear from the outset: Said is Arab African–French (Beur), Vinz has a Jewish background and Hubert is black African– French. He is guided by an underpinning realisation of the inescapable presence of the past within the present and an awareness of any society’s inability to deal with its current manifestation of itself without both knowledge and acknowledgment of its past. Kassovitz begins a metaphorical search behind that front cover, an exploration of the attitudes, values and politics of late twentieth-century multicultural French society. ‘I see very well what it signifies,’ says Barthes, ‘that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without colour discrimination, faithfully serve under the flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors’ (1972: 125–6). Kassovitz’s intellectual starting point is the insight Barthes gives us as he famously sits down at the barber’s shop and picks up a copy of Paris Match with an image on the front cover of a young black boy in uniform, looking up and saluting the French flag. We hear a shot but are left uncertain who may now have been killed.Īs he set out to make this film, Mathieu Kassovitz’s spiritual mentor could well have been Roland Barthes. Back on their home turf, Vinz is accidentally killed by plain-clothes police and Hubert points a gun at the officer responsible for the death. They journey into the centre of Paris and then back out to the working-class satellite town where they live, and as they do so they are confronted firstly by the well-to-do middle class, then by racist elements in the police force, and finally by right-wing skinheads. Said observes, watching events develop around him and treading the difficult middle ground between his two friends. Hubert, searching for ways to create something positive from his life, is more thoughtful and seems more balanced.
![la haine 1995 la haine 1995](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/La_Haine_1995.jpg)
Vinz has found a handgun and seems crazy enough to use it.
![la haine 1995 la haine 1995](https://ak1.ostkcdn.com/images/products/is/images/direct/4b8835fe317864f37b98c348d59c0bac094bfd6a/"La-Haine-(1995)"-Black-Float-Frame-Canvas-Art.jpg)
Three friends from different ethnic backgrounds experience the prejudices of French society in the 24 hours after a ‘race’ riot.