In the spring of 1993, 17-year-old Makome M’Bowole, was shot in the head at point blank range during police interrogation. He had been arrested in the 18th arrondissement, a district in Paris primarily populated by immi- grants, during a major police sweep. “Sweeps” were implemented in order to carry out identity checks in a period that oversaw an increase in police power, and primarily targeted people of colour. The officer responsible for his death, Pas- cal Compain, claimed that he had only meant to intimidate the boy by aiming a loaded gun at his temple. Nevertheless, civil unrest erupted immediately upon hearing the news. M’Bowole was one of three unarmed youths slain by police officers in a four-day period. After hearing of the shooting on the radio, Mathieu Kassovitz joined the subsequent rioting, or mourning, as he described it. He started writing La Haine (1995) that evening.
Set over a 24-hour period, La Haine follows three young men living in public housing projects on the outskirts of Paris. The trio consists of Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Kounde) and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) as they navigate their day amongst the aftermath of a violent riot. Each character offers a different attitude towards their current reality. Vinz is arrogant, hotheaded and unapologetic. After finding a police officer’s gun, he vows to “get even” with the cops for the near death of his friend, seeing his new piece as the perfect opportunity to enact revenge. In opposition, Hubert positions himself as the voice of reason throughout the film. He is in constant conflict with Vinz, finding his rage unproductive and dangerous. Prior to the riots, he owned a gym and dreamed of one day making it out of the projects. Saïd is often caught in the middle of the group. He shares Vinz’s disdain for the sys- tem and enjoys wreaking havoc, yet still pos- sesses many childlike qualities. Easily the most naïve of the trio, Saïd appears to have held onto his innocence in spite of his surroundings.
The first half of the film encompasses the young men’s boredom and lack of direction. Their time consists of futile conversations, smoking weed and running away from police, bouncing from one bleak location to the next. Captured through a wide shot, the trio sit beneath the graffitied words we are the future, as Hubert kicks at a discarded needle on the floor. Positioning the characters in this way, transforms an otherwise positive message into a grim reminder; that the neglected suburbs will stay neglected, as will the people living inside them. Kassovitz has expressed this belief before in an interview with the Guardian, claiming that “you don’t change society in 25 years. You need society to go all the way and collapse, and then you change it. You can’t change a machine that is perfect: capitalism. It’s not good, but it’s perfect. It’s working.”
After another near run-in with police officers, the group travel into the centre of Paris. Vinz spends the train journey bragging about his gun and eagerly fantasises about shooting a cop. The camera lingers on a close up of Hubert’s face as he looks at a billboard outside, reading, The World is Yours. Saïd later writes over these words, changing “yours” to “ours”, a demonstration of his hope and naïvety. Hubert no longer possesses these qualities, almost accepting his inevitable demise. Watching his friend be- come consumed by rage and violence obscures his role of the peace- maker within the group. He is worn down by it and becomes infected by Kassovitz’s own lack of hope for the future.
Almost thirty years on, La Haine remains more relevant than ever before. In the aftermath of Covid-19, which catapulted the widespread Black Lives Matter protests into mainstream media, France’s lawmakers adopted an immigration bill that had a disastrous impact on the rights of asylum seekers and migrants in France. This devastating bill set out to restrict the benefits of immigrants, including housing aid, in which residency requirement is set at five years for foreigners not in employment. People born in France to foreign parents are no longer automatically granted French citizenship and the conditions for family reunification have been made even tougher than before. Le Monde reported that, “never before has a government, and the country with it, been so much at the mercy of the far right.”
La Haine remains a timeless classic because of its brutal honesty. Kassovitz does not offer a solution to hate, but rather, reminds us of how it is built into the systems created to protect us. His illumination of this hypocrisy redefined French cinema and serves as an ongoing protest to the perfect capitalist machine.
