The Washington Post’s police shootings database reported, as of Feb. Many believe Traoré was killed at the hands of police, helping to inspire more than 20,000 people to protest at the French capital this June, according to NPR. “I thought, this is unbelievable, a man wakes one morning and that night he gets killed,” Kassovitz said in a 1999 interview with Thomas Bourguignon and Yann Tobin for “Projections 9: Filmmakers on Filmmaking.” “That was my story.”Īnother individual whose death sparked the French movement was Adama Traoré, a Black Frenchman who died while in police custody in 2016. In a September 2020 interview with Kaleem Aftab of the British Film Institute, Kassovitz said he decided to make “La Haine” on April 6, 1993, the day 17-year-old Makomé M’Bowolé was murdered by Paris police. Inspired by this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality in the U.S., as well as remaining tension from the French riots against police brutality in the ‘90s, French demonstrators took to the streets – both in solidarity and to advocate for justice in their own cases of police violence, NPR reported in June 2020. release, and the film still retains all its original relevance. Today marks the 25th anniversary of “La Haine”’s Feb. These brutal depictions of police brutality have caused many critics to accuse Kassovitz of having anti-police biases.Īccording to Ginette Vincendeau’s essay for the Criterion Collection, the Libération daily newspaper reported, following the film’s Cannes debut, “ uniformed police supposed to form a double ceremonial parade … ostensibly looked toward the sea in other words, they turned a hateful back to the team who made the film that hates them.” Imagery such as Saïd and Hubert’s harassment by police in the station as an officer-in-training sat watching paints an especially bleak picture of the blatant abuse of power exercised by authorities.
This attention to the vibrance of banlieue youth culture is contrasted starkly by violent clashes between young people and the authorities. Incorporating detailed depictions of youth culture in the banlieue, especially among immigrants, through attention to music, fashion and slang, Kassovitz paints an intimate picture of the trio’s everyday lives. Kassovitz acquaints the audience with young protagonists Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Hubert (Hubert Koundé) over the span of a tumultuous 24 hours as they wait for updates about their friend Abdel (Abdel Ahmed Ghili), who lay comatose in the hospital after being arrested and assaulted by police. Moments of joy, comedy and camaraderie interject the film’s gritty depiction of a Parisian banlieue - one of many working-class suburbs on the city’s outskirts faced with violence and unrest. A commentary on French police brutality in the 1990s, “La Haine” is gripping until the last second and its lasting social significance spans decades and continents. More than 25 years after making waves at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the relevance of French director Mathieu Kassovitz’s “La Haine” has reverberated much further than its initial extended standing ovation.
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