Product Description

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 Saïd—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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30960 in DVD
• Brand: Image Entertainment
• Released on: 2007-04-17
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 96 minutes

Amazon.com
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

Customer Reviews

Wow!
When I first saw this movie in Chicago, there were less than a dozen viewers in the theatre and we were all riveted to the screen from beginning to end.

This film tells a great story of three unique and somewhat unlikely friends in the French ghetto, and basically offers a walk through of their lives over a course of days. The dialogue is rapid-fire, intense, and ongoing...filled with passion and more. The action is equally vibrant, and one is immediately connected to each character,feeling for their perspectives and choices.

The ending is nothing less than stunning, yet honours the moment-to-moment uncertainty that one senses is one of the underlying goals of this piece. Anything can happen, and does...with fire! A must see.

Hypnotizing from beginning to end.
I loved this movie the first time I saw it and have seen it at least a dozen times since. It is a powerful story told as seen through the eyes and lives of three friends who are living in Paris during the riots. The direction of this movie is delicious and so is the character development. A beautiful job is done in introducing each of the three main characters and in giving a bit of insight in to each of their personal lives. One is a tough guy with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, another a good guy who has no choice but to sell hash to support his family, and the third a kid who doesn't seem to care about much other than getting laid and trying to impress his friends. What really caught me about this movie was how realistic I found it. It was funny and hard and real and disturbing and fabulous. I highly recommemend this film to anyone who enjoys quality and substance. It has an AWESOME soundtrack too!!!

A Missing Gun
Quite recently in East Germany eight Indian tourists were beaten up by some fifty neo-nazis. Being an American from a small, relatively poor town, I have also witnessed some heated racial tensions. While not to the extreme as the recent violence in East Germany, I have heard a number of words from people, even some I consider myself close to, that were quite shocking because they had no real basis besides the fact that the people were of a different skin color and religion. Mathieu Kassovitz's, who is unfortunately probably best known in America for his bomb Gothika, film La Haine, brings to the fore racial tensions in France especially in poor communities.

La Haine centers on three friends: Vinz, a Jew, Hubert, a black guy, and Saïd, an Arab. This odd trio spend there days living within the confines of a ghetto where violence rules the streets. While far from being innocent themselves, the three young men mainly engage in altercations involving the police, who harass them primarily because of their cultural stock and neo-nazis. While many might frown with the words police and neo-nazis being uttered in the same sentence, within the film the tactics used by both groups differ little. Anyway, after a recent altercation, a friend of the trio named Abdel was seriously injured by the police. Vinz, Vincent Cassel, the most hot-headed of the group, is determined to get even with the police if their friend dies. Normally his words would be viewed as nothing more as hot air, but he happens to have a gun dropped by a cop...

La Haine is a very strong black and white film that will often make the viewer uncomfortable while watching it especially if the viewer has some qualms with "authority figures" and the abuse of power. While I was watching the film I could literally feel myself become angry while Hubert and Saïd were being violently mistreated by un-uniformed police. Besides its representation of the abuse of power upon minorities, the film also gives a graphic display of the hopelessness felt by a number of individuals stuck in poor communities. With little chance of finding a good job or education, many of these individuals do turn to crime and to violent demonstration. However, faced with continued oppression by racist, rightist conservatives, sometimes the only choice is to go to extremes in order to be heard.