So far, So good...So far, So good... (La Haine (HD DVD))

Member Name: She-nobi

Product:	La Haine (HD DVD)
Date:	14/01/03 (1437 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: original, innovative, intelligent

Disadvantages: underexposed, underappreciated

La Haine opens with a shot of a Molotov cocktail falling in slow motion towards the earth and a voice-over is heard relating a joke about a man falling from a skyscraper repeating to himself “So far, so good…So far, so good”. This joke is retold at the end of the film, employing the dramatic technique of circular cohesion that is often effective with revolutionary satires, but with the term “society” replacing “man”. This tells us the question the film is posing is ‘When will society fall?’

The main body of the film follows three young men living in a deprived area of Paris, a setting that provides journalistic juxtapositions, such as the three sitting on a rooftop at night staring at the Eiffel Tower in the distance, a symbol of the romanticism and grandeur of the city unobtainable to the characters Said, Hubert and Vinz (played by Vincent Cassel, recently seen in the disappointing Brotherhood of the Wolf).

The film takes on a ‘day in the life’ feel as everything and nothing happens as the men go about their random existence. The mood is one of profound lack of purpose and the frequent frames of black with the time displayed in digital format add to the sense of a countdown to a revolution. It is also bleak following the violent scenes of riots that form the opening credits, in which one of their number, Abdul, has been injured and is critically ill in hospital. It is this need for retribution and his possession of a policeman’s gun obtained in the riot that fuel Vinz’s increasingly violent nature. He swears to murder a “pig” if Abdul dies and his internal moral struggle is a main thread of the film. It never becomes clear that Vinz ever spoke to Abdul, let alone was his friend, but I sense that the injured man is a beacon for the frustration and injustice he feels towards the authority that has failed him. There are scenes that convey Vinz’s unbalance
d state of mind, such as talking to himself in a mirror a’la Taxi Driver and the fact he sees a cow in the street which no-one else seems to notice.

Vinz’s internal struggle is depicted externally by the roles of the other characters, Said and Hubert, as they make up the three components of a personality. Applying psychoanalysis, each character represents the Id, the immature violent reactions of a child (Vinz), the Superego, the rational side that employs reason (Hubert), and the Ego, the halfway point that consults the extremes and decides what to do (Said). A scene outside a police station in which Hubert and Vinz are arguing and Said is caught in the middle trying to pacify them both illustrates this. As the film progresses this mental balance shifts as the characters undergo a series of changes, and (without wanting to give away the ending) we realise the answer to the question is society collapses when reason is lost and violent tendencies take over.

The majority of the movie is shot on monochrome film (that’s black and white to non-English students), which serves to create a documentary feel and reinforces the bleakness of city life, however the drama of La Haine is anything but bleak. Scenes such as Hubert and Said on the receiving end of police brutality and a violent attack on a nightclub bouncer involving a flare gun are almost painful to watch, and yet carry a subtlety and taste as we experience the shock through the main characters’ eyes. The tone of the film is such that we maintain an objective view of the events whilst still responding emotionally to what we see. As an audience we are constantly called on to make judgements on the action, making this a fascinating and involving cinematic experience.

As a good film should, La Haine displays original flare and innovation in its camerawork. Shots such as a close-up of a bathroom mirror that uses angles to include all three characters even though they
are in completely different parts of the room, and an aerial shot of a housing estate that seems only possible with the use of a mini-helicopter are testament to the effort made by director Kassovitz to push the medium forward. La Haine comes as a breath of fresh air not just in cinema as a whole but as a change from the majority of French cinema, which often focuses on Paris as a romantic and glamorous setting, and seems pre-occupied with the sex comedy (yawn). Many French filmmakers seem to shy from the subject of race, and the difficulties of the black, Jewish and Asian cast are prevalent in the story. La Haine really is a great film and you may not realise that the first time you see it, I didn’t, but your appreciation grows with repeated viewings, so a salute to Kassovitz for producing a paced, political, satirical drama with moments of humour and artistic flare that keeps me noticing new things every time I see it. Today’s cinema is in dire need of more films like this.

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