HUBERT: Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!
Hello everyone! Welcome to this week's unusually early post: La Haine by the brilliant Mathieu Kassovitz! This film is especially important because I finally watched it in a movie theater! It felt great to laugh with a room of people and shed some tears in the end. Thanks for being here and I hope you enjoy reading the post!
Mathieu Kassovitz is originally an actor that is most famous for his film Amelié (2001). He started writing this film following the accidental shooting of an immigrant by police - which I'll mention more in a bit. La Haine, similarly, tells the daily lives of "black-blanc-beur" (black-white-Arab) boys living in the Parisian ghetto. The main conflict of the film is built between the minority groups and the police. Despite taking a serious issue as its plot, the film was incredibly enjoyable to watch! Kassovitz added a good amount of humour to his film - so much so that my sister and I couldn't stop laughing at this epic Edith Piaf dubstep scene. It's one of the best scenes in movie history. Without a doubt.
Moving on, I'd like to talk more about some themes established in the film. Kassovitz intentionally chose three characters that represented different religious and racial backgrounds in the film. In a society that's usually represented in media, it's difficult to see an Arab, a Jewish, and an African-French together because of the racial/cultural barrier between them. In this underrepresented society, however, poverty brings down all the barriers between people and helps them to form a true friendship with each other. Kassovitz talks more about this topic in this interview!
The depiction of police brutality in the film, unfortunately, still feels as accurate as it was in 1990s. Throughout the film, we see our protagonists getting beaten and receiving all sorts of verbal/physical abuse from the police. As mentioned before, the starting point of the film came from an actual incident that happened in April 1993, where an innocent immigrant got shot by the police for no reported reason. The same tragedy, the anger rising from the minorities, and the rebellious atmosphere in that era were executed brilliantly into the film.
Let's talk about some characters of the movie. I'd like to start with Vinz (Vincent Cassel) who is the bad-tempered Jewish in the film. Ever since the beginning, we see Vinz getting extremely angry towards the system that oppresses the minority groups. When he hears about his friend's "accidental" shooting that resulted in a coma, he decides that he'll kill a police officer if his friend dies, thinking that it will make things even. When his friend dies, however, he doesn't shoot a police, because Vinz finally realizes that killing won't change anything, the system will work just the way it used to before. Out of all the characters in the film, I found Vinz's character development the most successful one.
Let's move forward with Hubert (Hubert Kounde), who is the wisest person in the group. Unlike Vinz and Said, Hubert tends to take his anger out through his boxing bag in a private room and never in public. In one effective scene, we hear him saying that his biggest wish is to leave the banlieue and move to a peaceful place. The real tragedy of the film lies in the fact that Hubert will never find somewhere peaceful, not him because of his race and economic status. As the film is painfully realistic about minorities' lives, we see in the end that he couldn't get to live his dream.
Reaching the end of this post, I'm giving this movie its well-deserved 10 out of 10. Watch this film in a movie theater if you can, it was an unforgettable experience for me. I laughed, gasped, and cried along with everyone else in the audience - which is a special thing not every movie can achieve!
I'd like to thank you so much for reading this far, and please don't forget to check out my Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr, all with the same nickname moviesatdawn. You can also comment down your thoughts below or send your suggestions to: moviesatdawn@gmail.com! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!
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