Riled by the April 1993 murder of a 17-year-old from Zaïre while handcuffed and in police custody, Kassovitz sought to expose the racial and class divisions that were tearing French society apart. Kassovitz wasn’t the first filmmaker to chip away at Paris’ romanticised City of Lights veneer, but he proved the most effective at translating the anger of suburban youths subjected to institutionalised racism and police brutality. IT TORE THE RÉPUBLIQUE APART AND REBUFFED PARIS' STUFFY IMAGE Clearly, this “malaise of the ghetto” (as a posh gallery owner in La Haine sniffily puts it) remains as explosive as ever. Watching the opening credits, as Bob Marley’s “Burnin’ and Lootin”’ plays out over documentary footage of Paris riots, viewers will draw parallels with the violent clashes which beset the French capital’s banlieues in 2005, 20. But one thing’s for sure: this year’s fest failed to deliver a scandal on a par with the furore surrounding Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny (2003), Lars von Trier’s Hitlergate moment in 2011, or French cops turning their backs to Mathieu Kassovitz when he won best director prize in 1995 for La Haine, his searing indictment of French society’s exclusion of disenfranchised youths from the Paris projects (or cités).Īs Kassovitz’s visceral debut celebrates its 20th anniversary, what’s most striking about this 24-hour window into the lives of three ethnically diverse male protagonists – Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Hubert (Hubert Koundé) – is that the shockingly gritty fable has lost none of its potency. Find out more here.As the dust begins to settle on the French Riviera, film buffs are fighting over whether first-time director László Nemes was robbed of the Palme d’Or for his highly praised Holocaust drama, Son of Saul.
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Its gorgeous cinematography and superlative soundtrack – featuring the likes of Bob Marley and KRS-One - combine with humour and surrealism to create a true classic that has been hugely influential on modern filmmaking, including this month’s Oscar-nominated new release Les Misérables. With tension in the air following a riot and the police on constant surveillance, it is not long before prejudice and hostility turns into violence, with tragic consequences.Īn incredibly prescient piece of filmmaking, La Haine’s comments on politics and social issues resonate as much today as they did a quarter of a century ago. Based on real events, La Haine follows three friends (Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui) over the course of one day in the housing projects of suburban Paris.
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