The notion of falling to your death is played upon throughout, and it ends up becoming a metaphor for the decline of a society that is devouring itself. Rage against the overzealous, distinctly racist police offers that chase them around the estate, against the upper annals of society that would rather pretend they didn’t exist and against the entire system they try each day to scrape a living from. It’s an amusing film and all 3 are likeable in their own ways, but their love of mischief is undercut by a dark, consuming rage ( La Haine literally translates as ‘Hate’). Through the course of the film we trace their path on a dull day as they venture into the main part of the city in search of something to do. Hubert, a boxer, is the most mature of the 3, Said the most rambunctious and Vinz the most rash, and quick to anger. It might seem a bit reductive to point out their racial denominations but trust me, it’s important. It follows the exploits of 3 boys – the Jewish, Eastern European Vinz (a young Vincent Cassel), the African Hubert (Hubert Kounde) and Said (Said Taghmaoui), a North African.

La Haine takes place right in the middle of this disturbing time, in one of the city’s poorest outer housing estates. At the same time, the capital was being choked by a wave of extremely unpopular austerity measures, people were protesting in the streets and getting anywhere was an ordeal. In 1995 there were several bombings around Paris and other parts of the country, many died, more were injured and the nation was plunged into a deep state of public unrest. La Haine carried that spirit forwards into the tumultuous 90s, and draped it in a layer of bristling, heated controversy. The same rule applies with film-making, the minds behind the magazine Cahirs du Cinema, and later went on to spark French New Wave were great lovers of Hollywood, but not of the French cinema scene of the time, and did everything they could to oppose and counteract it. Supposedly, when wheel clamps were introduced there, they had to be hastily recalled because any which were used were often found with glue squirted into them shortly thereafter.

It played host to one of the most, if not THE most famous revolution in history, and since then a culture of questioning has becoming imbedded in their DNA. French culture is, in some ways, defined by defiance.

La haine imdb