La Haine Reviews

Veracious, insightful and nuanced despite its unflinching socioeconomic themes and anti-police stance, "La Haine" is world cinema at its most accessible and felicitous. Transpiring in the aftermath of an urban riot in the suburbs of Paris, the film surveys a day in the lives of three disenfranchised, multicultural men involved in said violent disturbance. Resplendent with technical flourishes, entirely apropos black-and-white cinematography, American influences and references, perhaps employed to enhance the universal comprehensibility and commercial viability of the film. Entirely self-aware and receptive to its audience on a greater scale than most low-budget, thinly-plotted and fast-paced ghetto pics of its ilk, the film nevertheless retains a hard-hitting rawness and a detached, simplistic feel that builds tension and simmers its contextual complexity, litigating its overriding message until the explosive final scene reinforces it. Somewhat violating cinematic and narrative rules, Mathieu Kassovitz's gritty, stylish cinema du look visual document on class and race evaluates and extricates the minutiae and causality of inner city life, unveiling the far-reaching repercussions of hatred within a vitriolic, disruptive criminal environment. It is a controversial piece of taut, powerful modern French cinema that every self-professed film aficionado should experience at least once.