Thursday 9 June 2016

La Haine: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - For Everyone?

La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) is based on three young friends and their struggle to live in the ‘ banlieues’ of Paris. ‘Banlieues’ were suburbs in a large city of France, with La Haine based in Paris.


The three protagonists of the film came from three different backgrounds; Vinz is a white, Jewish male, Hubert, a black male and Saïd, who was classed as a “beur”; which was slang for someone of 2nd generation North African descent.



At the core of La Haine is ‘an appeal to authenticity and to youth culture’. (Vincendeau, 2000, p.311) which does give a suggestion of liberty for youth culture however there seems to be no real injunction of equality and fraternity. This is strongly backed up by Vincendeau’s with her remark of ‘a testosterone-filled world’. (p.314). This is a very valuable statement as for a majority of the film the families of the protagonists are kept off screen and so is the culture. Mathieu Kassovitz (Director) justifies the absence of women in the film by saying it was a ‘desire to keep the idea of the film as pure as possible’ (p.315).

In conclusion, La Haine does focus on the liberation of youth culture in the suburbs of Paris, however it has no strong, recognizable notions of fraternity and equality due to lack of female characters and the strong idea of sexism by the director.

Bibliography: 

Vincendeau, Ginette. ‘Designs on the banlieue in Mathieu Kossovitz’s La Haine in Haywayrd, Susan. French Film: Texts and Contexts. (London: Routledge, 2000) pp. 310-327.

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